UfiftARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


JOHN   LYLY 


Cambridge: 

PRINTED   BY  JOHN   CLAY,   M.A., 
AT  THE   UNIVERSITY   PRESS. 


JOHN   LYLY 


BY 


JOHN    DOVER   WILSON, 

B.A.,  Late  Scholar  of  Gonville  and  Caius  College,  Cambridge. 

Members'  Prizeman,  1902.     Harness  Prizeman,   1904. 

Honours  in  Historical  Tripos. 


Macmillan  and  Bowes 

Cambridge 

1905 


A 

MIA 
DONNA. 


PREFACE. 

r  I  AHE    following   treatise  was  awarded    the  Harness 
-*-      Prise  at  Cambridge  in    1904.     I   have,    however, 
revised  it  since  then,  and  in  some  matters  considerably 
enlarged  it. 

A  list  of  the  chief  authorities  to  whom  I  am  indebted 
will  be  found  at  the  end  of  the  book,  but  it  is  fitting 

o 

that  I  should  here  make  particular  mention  of  my 
obligations  to  the  exhaustive  work  of  Mr  Bond1.  Not 
only  have  his  labours  of  research  and  collation  lightened 
the  task  for  me,  and  for  any  future  student  of  Lyly,  to  an 
incalculable  extent,  but  the  various  introductory  essays 
scattered  up  and  down  his  volumes  are  full  of  invaluable 
suggestions. 

This  book  was  unfortunately  nearing  its  completion 
before  I  was  able  to  avail  myself  of  Mr  Martin  Hume's 
Spanish  Influence  on  Englisli  Literature.  But,  though 
I  might  have  added  more  had  his  book  been  accessible 
earlier,  I  was  glad  to  find  that  his  conclusions  left  the 
main  theory  of  my  chapter  on  Euphuism  untouched. 

Much  as  has  been  written  upon  John  Lyly,  no 
previous  critic  has  attempted  to  cover  the  whole  ground, 

1   The  Complete  Works  of  John  Lyly.    R.  W.  Bond,  3  Vols.    Clarendon 
Press. 


vi  PREFACE 

and  to  sum  up  in  a  brief  and  convenient  form  the  three 
main  literary  problems  which  centre  round  his  name. 
My  solution  of  these  problems  may  be  faulty  in  detail, 
but  it  will  I  hope  be  of  service  to  Elizabethan  students 
to  have  them  presented  in  a  single  volume  and  from 
a  single  point  of  view.  Furthermore,  when  I  undertook 
this  study,  I  found  several  points  which  seemed  -to 
demand  closer  attention  than  they  had  hitherto  received. 
It  appeared  to  me  that  the  last  word  had  not  been  said 
even  upon  the  subject  of  Euphuism,  although  that  topic 
has  usurped  the  lion's  share  of  critical  treatment.  And 
again,  while  Lyly's  claims  as  a  novelist  are  acknowledged 
on  all  hands,  I  felt  that  a  clear  statement  of  his  exact 
position  in  the  history  of  our  novel  was  still  needed. 
Finally,  inasmuch  as  the  personality  of  an  author  is 
always  more  fascinating  to  me  than  his  writings, 
I  determined  to  attempt  to  throw  some  light,  however 
fitful  and  uncertain,  upon  the  man  Lyly  himself.  The 
attempt  was  not  entirely  fruitless,  for  it  led  to  the 
interesting  discovery  that  the  fully-developed  euphuism 
was  not  the  creation  of  Lyly,  or  Pettie,  or  indeed  of 
any  one  individual,  but  of  a  circle  of  young  Oxford  men 
which  included  Gosson,  Watson,  Hakluyt,  and  possibly 
many  others. 

I  have  to  thank  Mr  J.  R.  Collins  and  Mr  J.  N.  Frazer, 
the  one  for  help  in  revision,  and  the  other  for  assistance 
in  Spanish.  But  my  chief  debt  of  gratitude  is  due  to 
Dr  Ward,  the  Master  of  Peterhouse,  who  has  twice  read 
through  this  book  at  different  stages  of  its  construction. 
The  readiness  with  which  he  has  put  his  great  learning 


PREFACE  Vll 

at  my  disposal,  his  kindly  interest,  and  frequent  en- 
couragement have  been  of  the  very  greatest  help  in  a 
task  which  was  undertaken  and  completed  under  pressure 
of  other  work. 

As  the  full  titles  of  authorities  used  are  to  be  found 
in  the  list  at  the  end,  I  have  referred  to  works  in  the 
footnotes  simply  by  the  name  of  their  author,  while  in 
quoting  from  EupJiues  I  have  throughout  employed 
Prof.  Arber's  reprint.  Should  errors  be  discovered  in 
the  text  I  must  plead  in  excuse  that,  owing  to  circum- 
stances, the  book  had  to  be  passed  very  quickly  through 
the  press. 

JOHN    DOVER   WILSON. 

HOLMLEIGH,  SHELFORD,  August,  1905. 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

PAGE 

The  problem  stated— Sketch  of  Lyly's  life  ....  i 

CHAPTER   I. 

EUPHUISM 10 

Section  I.     The  Anatomy  of  Euphuism       ...  13 
Section  II.     The  Origin  of  Euphuism         ...  21 
Section    III.      Lyly's   legatees   and    the   relation   be- 
tween Euphuism  and  the  Renaissance   ...  43 
Section  IV.     The  position  of  Euphuism   in  the  his- 
tory of  English  Prose 52 

CHAPTER    II. 

THE  FIRST  ENGLISH  NOVEL 64 

The  rise  of  the  Novel — the  characteristics  of  The 
Anatomy  of  IVit  and  Euphnes  and  his  England — 
the  Elizabethan  Novel. 

CHAPTER    III. 

LYLY  THE  DRAMATIST 85 

Section  I.     English  Comedy  before  1580  ...  89 

Section  II.     The  Eight  Plays 98 

Section  III.  Lyly's  advance  and  subsequent  in- 
fluence    119 

CHAPTER    IV. 

CONCLUSION 132 

Lyly's  Character — Summary. 

INDEX  .  i/n 


INTRODUCTION. 

SINCE  the  day  when  Taine  established  a  scientific 
basis  for  the  historical  study  of  Art,  criticism  has  tended 
gradually  but  naturally  to  fall  into  two  divisions,  as  dis- 
tinct from  each  other  as  the  functions  they  respectively 
perform  are  distinct.  The  one,  which  we  may  call 
aesthetic  criticism,  deals  with  the  artist  and  his  works 
solely  for  the  purpose  of  interpretation  and  appreciation, 
judging  them  according  to  some  artistic  standard,  which, 
as  often  as  not,  derives  its  only  sanction  from  the  pre- 
judices of  the  critic  himself.  It  is  of  course  obvious  that, 
until  all  critics  are  agreed  upon  some  common  principles 
of  artistic  valuation,  aesthetic  criticism  can  lay  no  claim 
to  scientific  precision,  but  must  be  classed  as  a  depart- 
ment of  Art  itself.  The  other,  an  application  of  the 
Darwinian  hypothesis  to  literature,  which  owes  its  exist- 
ence almost  entirely  to  the  great  French  critic  before 
mentioned,  but  which  has  since  rejected  as  unscientific 
many  of  the  laws  he  formulated,  may  be  called  historical 
or  sociological  criticism.  It  judges  a  work  of  art,  an 
artist,  or  an  artistic  period,  on  its  dynamic  and  not  its 
intrinsic  merits.  Its  standard  is  influence,  not  power  or 
beauty.  It  is  concerned  with  the  artistic  qualities  of  a 
given  artist  only  in  so  far  as  he  exerts  influence  over  his 
successors  by  those  qualities.  It  is  essentially  scientific, 
for  it  treats  the  artist  as  science  treats  any  other  natural 
phenomenon,  that  is,  as  the  effect  of  previous  causes  and 
w.  i 


2  JOHN    LYLY 

the  cause  of  subsequent  effects.  Its  function  is  one  of 
classification,  and  with  interpretation  or  appreciation  it 
has  nothing  to  do. 

Before  undertaking  the  study  of  an  artist,  the  critic 
should  carefully  distinguish  between  these  two  critical 
methods.  A  complete  study  must  of  course  comprehend 
both  ;  and  in  the  case  of  Shakespeare,  shall  we  say,  each 
should  be  exhaustive.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
artists  whose  dynamical  value  is  far  greater  than  their 
intrinsic  value,  and  vice  versa  ;  and  in  such  instances  the 
critic  must  be  guided  in  his  action  by  the  relative  im- 
portance of  these  values  in  any  particular  example.  This 
is  so  in  the  case  of  John  Lyly.  In  the  course  of  the 
following  treatise  we  shall  have  occasion  to  pass  many 
aesthetic  judgments  upon  his  work ;  but  it  will  be  from 
the  historical  side  that  we  shall  view  him  in  the  main, 
because  his  importance  for  the  readers  of  the  twentieth 
century  is  almost  entirely  dynamical.  His  work  is  by 
no  means  devoid  of  aesthetic  merit.  He  was,  like  so 
many  of  the  Elizabethans,  a  writer  of  beautiful  lyrics 
which  are  well  known  to  this  day ;  but,  though  the  rest 
of  his  work  is  undoubtedly  that  of  an  artist  of  no  mean 
ability,  the  beauty  it  possesses  is  the  beauty  of  a  fossil  in 
which  few  but  students  would  profess  any  interest.  More- 
over, even  could  we  claim  more  for  John  Lyly  than  this, 
any  aesthetic  criticism  would  of  necessity  become  a 
secondary  matter  in  comparison  with  his  importance  in 
other  directions,  for  to  the  scientific  critic  he  is  or  should 
be  one  of  the  most  significant  figures  in  English  literature. 
This  claim  I  hope  to  justify  in  the  following  pages  ;  but 
it  will  be  well,  by  way  of  obtaining  a  broad  general  view 
of  our  subject,  to  call  attention  to  a  few  points  upon 
which  our  justification  must  ultimately  rest. 

In  the  first  place  John  Lyly,  inasmuch  as  he  was  one 


INTRODUCTION  3 

of  the  earliest  writers  who  considered  prose  as  an  artistic 
end  in  itself,  and  not  simply  as  a  medium  of  expression, 
may  be  justly  described  as  a  founder,  if  not  the  founder, 
of  English  prose  style. 

In  the  second  place  he  was  the  author  of  the  first 
novel  of  manners  in  the  language. 

And  in  the  third  place,  and  from  the  point  of  view  of 
Elizabethan  literature  most  important  of  all,  he  was  one 
of  our  very  earliest  dramatists,  and  without  doubt  merits 
the  title  of  Father  of  English  Comedy. 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  over-estimate  his  historical 
importance  in  these  three  departments,  and  this  not 
because  he  was  a  great  genius  or  possessed  of  any 
magnificent  artistic  gifts,  but  for  the  simple  reason  that 
he  happened  to  stand  upon  the  threshold  of  modern 
English  literature  and  at  the  very  entrance  to  its 
splendid  Elizabethan  ante-room,  and  therefore  all  who 
came  after  felt  something  of  his  influence.  These  are 
the  three  chief  points  of  interest  about  Lyly,  but  they  do 
not  exhaust  the  problems  he  presents.  We  shall  have  to 
notice  also  that  as  a  pamphleteer  he  becomes  entangled 
in  the  famous  Marprelate  controversy,  and  that  he  was 
one  of  the  first,  being  perhaps  even  earlier  than  Marlowe, 
to  perceive  the  value  of  blank  verse  for  dramatic  purposes. 
Finally,  as  we  have  seen,  he  was  the  reputed  author  of 
some  delightful  lyrics. 

The  man  of  whom  one  can  say  such  things,  the  man 
who  showed  such  versatility  and  range  of  expression,  the 
man  who  took  the  world  by  storm  and  made  euphuism 
the  fashion  at  court  before  he  was  well  out  of  his  nonage, 
who  for  years  provided  the  great  Queen  with  food  for 
laughter,  and  who  was  connected  with  the  first  ominous 
outburst  of  the  Puritan  spirit,  surely  possesses  personal 
attractions  apart  from  any  literary  considerations.  We 


4  JOHN   LYLY 

shall  presently  see  reason  to  believe  that  his  personality 
was  a  brilliant  and  fascinating  one.  But  such  a  recon- 
struction of  the  artist1  is  only  possible  after  a  thorough 
analysis  of  his  works.  It  would  be  as  well  here,  however, 
by  way  of  obtaining  an  historical  framework  for  our  study, 
to  give  a  brief  account  of  his  life  as  it  is  known  to  us. 

"  Eloquent  and  witty  "  John  Lyly  first  saw  light  in 
the  year  1553  or  1554".  Anthony  a  Wood,  the  i/th 
century  author  of  Atlienae  Oxonienses,  tells  us  that  he 
was,  like  his  contemporary  Stephen  Gosson,  a  Kentish 
man  born3;  and  with  this  clue  to  help  them  both 
Mr  Bond  and  Mr  Baker  are  inclined  to  accept  much 
of  the  story  of  Fidus  as  autobiographical4.  If  their 
inference  be  correct,  our  author  would  seem  to  have 
been  the  son  of  middle-class,  but  well-to-do,  parents. 
But  it  is  with  his  residence  at  Oxford  that  any  authentic 
account  of  his  life  must  begin,  and  even  then  our  informa- 
tion is  very  meagre.  Wood  tells  us  that  he  "  became  a 
student  in  Magdalen  College  in  the  beginning  of  1 569, 
aged  16  or  thereabouts."  "And  since,"  adds  Mr  Bond, 
"in  1574  he  describes  himself  as  Burleigh's  alumnus,  and 
owns  obligations  to  him,  it  is  possible  that  he  owed  his 
university  career  to  Burleigh's  assistance5."  And  yet, 
limited  as  our  knowledge  is,  it  is  possible,  I  think,  to 
form  a  fairly  accurate  conception  of  Lyly's  manner  of 
life  at  Oxford,  if  we  are  bold  enough  to  read  between 
the  lines  of  the  scraps  of  contemporary  evidence  that 
have  come  down  to  us.  Lyly  himself  tells  us  that  he 
left  Oxford  for  three  years  not  long  after  his  arrival. 
"Oxford,"  he  says,  "seemed  to  weane  me  before  she 
brought  me  forth,  and  to  give  me  boanes  to  gnawe, 

1  Cf.  Hennequin.  2  Bond,  I.  p.  2 ;  Baker,  p.  v. 

3  Ath.  Ox.  (ed.  Bliss),  I.  p.  676.  *  Euphues,  p.  268. 

5  Bond,  I.  p.  6.  But  Baker,  pp.  vii,  viii,  would  seem  to  disagree  with  this. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

before  I  could  get  the  teate  to  suck.  Wherein  she  played 
the  nice  mother  in  sending  me  into  the  countrie  to  nurse, 
where  I  tyred  at  a  drie  breast  for  three  years  and  was  at 
last  inforced  to  weane  myself."  Mr  Bond,  influenced  by 
the  high  moral  tone  of  EupJmes,  which,  as  we  shall  see, 
was  merely  a  traditional  literary  prose  borrowed  from  the 
moral  court  treatise,  is  anxious  to  vindicate  Lyly  from 
all  charges  of  lawlessness,  and  refuses  to  admit  that  the 
foregoing  words  refer  to  rustication1.  Lyly's  enforced 
absence  he  holds  was  due  to  the  plague  which  broke  out 
at  Oxford  at  this  time.  Such  an  interpretation  seems 
to  me  to  be  sufficiently  disposed  of  by  the  fact  that  the 
plague  in  question  did  not  break  out  until  I5/I2,  while 
Lyly's  words  must  refer  to  a  departure  (at  the  very 
latest)  in  1570.  Everything,  in  fact,  goes  to  show  that 
he  was  out  of  favour  with  the  University  authorities. 
In  the  first  place  he  seems  to  have  paid  small  attention 
to  his  regular  studies.  To  quote  Wood  again,  he  was 
"  always  averse  to  the  crabbed  studies  of  Logic  and 
Philosophy.  For  so  it  was  that  his  genie,  being  naturally 
bent  to  the  pleasant  paths  of  poetry  (as  if  Apollo  had 
given  to  him  a  wreath  of  his  own  Bays  without  snatching 
or  struggling),  did  in  a  manner  neglect  academical  studies, 
yet  not  so  much  but  that  he  took  the  Degree  in  Arts, 
that  of  Master  being  completed  in  I5753." 

Neglect  of  the  recognised  studies,  however,  was  not 
the  only  blot  upon  Lyly's  Oxford  life.  From  the  hints 
thrown  out  by  his  contemporaries,  and  from  some 
allusions,  doubtless  personal,  in  the  Euphues,  we  learn 
that,  as  an  undergraduate,  he  was  an  irresponsible  mad- 
cap. "  Esteemed  in  the  University  a  noted  wit,"  he 
would  very  naturally  become  the  centre  of  a  pleasure- 

1  Bond,  I.  p.  n.  2  Baker,  p.  xii. 

3  Athenae  Oxonienses  (ed.  Bliss),  I.  p.  676. 


6  JOHN    LYLY 

seeking  circle  of  friends,  despising  the  persons  and  ideas 
of  their  elders,  eager  to  adopt  the  latest  fashion  whether 
in  dress  or  in  thought,  and  intolerant  alike  of  regulations 
and  of  duty.  Gabriel  Harvey,  who  nursed  a  grudge 
against  Lyly,  even  speaks  of  "  horning,  gaming,  fooling 
and  knaving,"  words  which  convey  a  distinct  sense  of 
something  discreditable,  whatever  may  be  their  exact 
significance.  It  is  necessary  to  lay  stress  upon  this 
period  of  Lyly's  life,  because,  as  I  hope  to  show,  his 
residence  at  Oxford,  and  the  friends  he  made  there,  had 
a  profound  influence  upon  his  later  development,  and  in 
particular  determined  his  literary  bent.  For  our  present 
purpose,  however,  which  is  merely  to  give  a  brief  sketch 
of  his  life,  it  is  sufficient  to  notice  that  our  author's 
conduct  during  his  residence  was  not  so  exemplary  as 
it  might  have  been.  It  must,  therefore,  have  called 
forth  a  sigh  of  relief  from  the  authorities  of  Magdalen, 
when  they  saw  the  last  of  John  Lyly,  M.A.,  in  1575. 
He  however,  quite  naturally,  saw  matters  otherwise.  It 
would  seem  to  him  that  the  College  was  suffering  wrong 
in  losing  so  excellent  a  wit,  and  accordingly  he  heroically 
took  steps  to  prevent  such  a  catastrophe,  for  in  1576  we 
find  him  writing  to  his  patron  Burleigh,  requesting  him 
to  procure  mandatory  letters  from  the  Queen  "that  so 
under  your  auspices  I  may  be  quietly  admitted  a  Fellow 
there."  The  petition  was  refused,  Burleigh's  sense  of 
propriety  overcoming  his  sense  of  humour,  and  the 
petitioner  quitted  Oxford,  leaving  his  College  the  legacy 
of  an  unpaid  bill  for  battels,  and  probably  already  pre- 
paring in  his  brain  the  revenge,  which  subsequently  took 
the  form  of  an  attack  upon  his  University  in  Enphues, 
which  he  published  in  1578. 

It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  in  1579.  according  to 
the  common  practice  of  that  day,  he  proceeded  to  his 


INTRODUCTION  7 

degree  of  M.A.  at  Cambridge,  though  there  is  no 
evidence  of  any  residence  there1.  Indeed  we  know 
from  other  sources  that  in  1578,  or  perhaps  earlier,  Lyly 
had  taken  up  his  position  at  the  Savoy  Hospital.  It 
seems  probable  that  he  became  again  indebted  to  Bur- 
leigh's  generosity  for  the  rooms  he  occupied  here — 
unless  they  were  hired  for  him  by  Burleigh's  son-in-law 
Edward  de  Vere,  Earl  of  Oxford.  This  person,  though 
few  of  his  writings  are  now  extant,  is  nevertheless  an 
interesting  figure  in  Elizabethan  literature.  The  second 
part  of  Eupliues  published  in  1580,  and  the  Hekatompathia 
of  Thomas  Watson,  are  both  dedicated  to  him,  and  he 
seems  to  have  acted  as  patron  to  most  of  Lyly's  literary 
associates  when  they  left  Oxford  for  London.  Lyly 
became  his  private  secretary;  and  as  the  Earl  was 
himself  a  dramatist,  though  his  comedies  are  now  lost, 
his 'influence  must  have  confirmed  in  our  author  those 
dramatic  aspirations,  which  were  probably  acquired  at 
Oxford;  and  we  have  every  reason  for  believing  that 
Lyly  was  still  his  secretary  when  he  was  publishing  his 
two  first  plays,  Cawpaspe  and  Sapho,  in  1584.  But  this 
point  will  require  a  fuller  treatment  at  a  later  stage  of 
our  study. 

Somewhere  about  1585  Fate  settled  once  and  for  all 
the  lines  on  which  Lyly's  genius  was  to  develop,  for  at 
that  time  he  became  an  assistant  master  at  the  St  Paul's 
Choir  School.  Schools,  and  especially  those  for  choristers, 
at  this  time  offered  excellent  opportunities  for  dramatic 
production.  Lyly  in  his  new  position  made  good  use  of 
his  chance,  and  wrote  plays  for  his  young  scholars  to  act, 
drilling  them  himself,  and  perhaps  frequently  appearing 
personally  on  the  stage.  These  chorister-actors  were 
connected  in  a  very  special  way  with  royal  entertain- 

1  Mr  Baker  however  seems  to  think  that  his  reference  to  Cambridge 
(Enphues,  p.  436)  implies  a  term  of  residence  there.     Baker,  p.  xxii. 


8  JOHN    LYLY 

merits  ;  and  therefore  they  and  their  instructor  would  be 
constantly  brought  into  touch  with  the  Revels'  Office. 
As  we  know  from  his  letters  to  Elizabeth  and  to  Cecil, 
the  mastership  of  the  Revels  was  the  post  Lyly  coveted, 
and  coveted  without  success,  as  far  as  we  can  tell,  until 
the  end  of  his  life.  But  these  letters  also  show  us  that 
he  was  already  connected  with  this  office  by  his  position 
in  the  subordinate  office  of  Tents  and  Toils.  The  latter, 
originally  instituted  for  the  purpose  of  furnishing  the 
necessaries  of  royal  hunting  and  campaigning1,  had  ap- 
parently become  amalgamated  under  a  female  sovereign 
with  the  Revels'  Office,  possibly  owing  to  the  fact  that  its 
costumes  and  weapons  provided  useful  material  for  enter- 
tainments and  interludes.  Another  position  which,  as 
Mr  Bond  shows,  was  held  at  one  time  by  Lyly,  was  that 
of  reader  of  new  books  to  the  Bishop  of  London.  This 
connexion  with  the  censorship  of  the  day  is  interesting, 
as  showing  how  Lyly  was  drawn  into  the  whirlpool  of 
the  Marprelate  controversy.  Finally  we  know  that  he 
was  elected  a  member  of  Parliament  on  four  separate 
occasions2. 

These  varied  occupations  are  proof  of  the  energy 
and  versatility  of  our  author,  but  not  one  of  them  can 
be  described  as  lucrative.  Nor  can  his  publications  have 
brought  him  much  profit ;  for,  though  both  Etiphues  and 
its  sequel  passed  through  ten  editions  before  his  death, 
an  author  in  those  days  received  very  little  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  his  work.  Moreover  the  publication  of  his  plays 
is  rather  an  indication  of  financial  distress  than  a  sign  of 
prosperity.  The  two  dramas  already  mentioned  were 
printed  before  Lyly's  connexion  with  the  Choir  School ; 
and,  when  in  1585  he  became  "vice-master  of  Poules 

1  Bond,  I.  p.  38. 

2  I  have  to  thank  Dr  Ward  for  pointing  out  to  me  the  interesting  fact 
that  a  large  proportion  of  Elizabeth's  M.P.'s  were  royal  officials. 


INTRODUCTION  9 

and  Foolmaster  of  the  Theater,"  he  would  be  careful  to 
keep  his  plays  out  of  the  publisher's  hands,  in  order  to 
preserve  the  acting  monopoly.     It  is  probable  that  the 
tenure    of  this   Actor-manager-schoolmastership   marks 
the  height  of  Lyly's  prosperity,  and  the  inhibition  of  the 
boys'  acting  rights  in   1591  must  have  meant  a  severe 
financial  loss  to  him.    Thus  it  is  only  after  this  date  that 
he  is  forced  to  make  what  he  can  by  the  publication  of 
his  other  plays.      The  fear  of  poverty  was  the  more 
urgent,  because  he  had  a  wife  and  family  on  his  hands. 
And  though  Mr  Bond  believes  that  he  found  an  occupa- . 
tion    after    1591    in    writing    royal    entertainments,    and 
though  the  inhibition  on  the  choristers'  acting  was  re- 
moved as  early  as  1 599,  yet  the  last  years  of  Lyly's  life 
were  probably  full  of  disappointment.     This  indeed  is 
confirmed  by  the  bitter  tone  of  his  letter  to  Elizabeth  in 
1598  in  reference  to  the  mastership  of  the  Revels'  Office, 
which  he  had  at  last  despaired  of.    The  letter  in  question 
is  sad  reading.     Beginning  with  a  euphuism  and  ending 
in  a  jest,  it  tells  of  a  man  who  still  retains,  despite  all 
adversity,    a    courtly    mask    and    a    merry   tongue,    but 
beneath  this  brave  surface  there  is  visible  a  despair — 
almost  amounting  to  anguish — which  the  forced  merri- 
ment only  renders  more  pitiable.    And  the  gloom  which 
surrounded  his  last  years  was  not  only  due  to  the  distress 
of  poverty.     Before  his  death  in  1606  he  had  seen  his 
novel  eclipsed  by  the  new  Arcadian   fashion,  and   had 
watched  the  rise  of  a  host  of  rival  dramatists,  thrusting 
him  aside  while  they  took  advantage  of  his  methods. 
Greatest    of  them    all,   as   he   must   have   realised,  was 
Shakespeare,  the  sun   of  our  drama  before  whom   the 
silver  light  of  his  little  moon,  which  had  first  illumined 
our  darkness,  waned  and  faded  away  and  was  to  be  for 
centuries  forgotten. 


CHAPTER    I. 

EUPHUISM. 

IT  was  as  a  novelist  that  Lyly  first  came  before  the 
world  of  English  letters.  In  1578  he  published  a  volume, 
bearing  the  inscription,  Euphues:  the  anatomy  of  wyt, 
to  which  was  subjoined  the  attractive  advertisement, 
very  pleasant  for  all  gentlemen  to  reade,  and  most  necessary 
to  remember.  This  book,  which  was  to  work  a  revolution 
in  our  literature,  was  completed  in  1580  by  a  sequel, 
entitled  Euphues  and  his  England.  Euphues,  to  combine 
the  two  parts  under  one  name,  the  fruit  of  Lyly's  nonage, 
seems  to  have  determined  the  form  of  his  reputation 
for  the  Elizabethans;  and  even  to-day  it  attracts  more 
attention  than  any  other  of  his  works.  This  probably 
implies  a  false  estimate  of  Lyly's  comparative  merits  as 
a  novelist  and  as  a  dramatist.  But  it  is  not  surprising 
that  critics,  living  in  the  century  of  the  novel,  and 
with  their  eyes  towards  the  country  pre-eminent  in  its 
production,  should  think  and  write  of  Lyly  chiefly  as 
the  first  of  English  novelists.  The  bias  of  the  age  is  as 
natural  and  as  dangerous  an  element  in  criticism  as  the 
bias  of  the  individual.  But  it  is  not  with  the  modern 
appraisement  of  Euphues  that  we  are  here  concerned. 
Nor  need  we  proceed  immediately  to  a  consideration 
of  its  position  in  the  history  of  the  English  novel. 


EUPHUISM  II 

We  have  first  to  deal  with  its  Elizabethan  reputation. 
Had  Euphnes  been  a  still-born  child  of  Lyly's  genius, 
had  it  produced  no  effect  upon  the  literature  of  the  age, 
it  would  possess  nothing  but  a  purely  archaeological 
interest  for  us  to-day.  It  would  still  be  the  first  of 
English  novels:  but  this  claim  would  lose  half  its 
significance,  did  it  not  carry  with  it  the  implication  that 
the  book  was  also  the  origin  of  English  novel  writing. 
The  importance,  therefore,  of  Euphues  is  not  so  much 
that  it  was  primary,  as  that  it  was  primordial;  and,  to 
be  such,  it  must  have  laid  its  spell  in  some  way  or  other 
upon  succeeding  writers.  Our  first  task  is  therefore  to 
enquire  what  this  spell  was,  and  to  discover  whether  the 
attraction  of  Eiiphues  must  be  ascribed  to  Lyly's  own 
invention  or  to  artifices  which  he  borrows  from  others. 

While,  as  I  have  said,  Lyly's  name  is  associated  with 
the  novel  by  most  modern  critics,  it  has  earned  a  more 
widespread  reputation  among  the  laity  for  affectation 
and  mannerisms  of  style.  Indeed,  until  fifty  years  ago, 
Lyly  spelt  nothing  but  euphuism,  and  euphuism  meant 
simply  nonsense,  clothed  in  bombast.  It  was  a  blind 
acceptance  of  these  loose  ideas  which  led  Sir  Walter 
Scott  to  create  (as  a  caricature  of  Lyly)  his  Sir  Piercie 
Shafton  in  The  Monastery — an  historical  faux  pas  for 
which  he  has  been  since  sufficiently  called  to  account. 
Nevertheless  Lyly's  reputation  had  a  certain  basis  of 
fact,  and  we  may  trace  the  tradition  back  to  Elizabethan 
days.  It  is  perhaps  worth  pointing  out  that,  had  we 
no  other  evidence  upon  the  subject,  the  survival  of  this 
tradition  would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  it  was  Lyly's 
style  more  than  anything  else  which  appealed  to  the 
men  of  his  day.  A  contemporary  confirmation  of  this 
may  be  found  in  the  words  of  William  Webbe.  Writing 
in  1586  of  the  "great  good  grace  and  sweet  vogue  which 


12  JOHN    LYLY 

Eloquence  hath  attained  in  our  Speeche,"  he  declares 
that  the  English  language  has  thus  progressed,  "because 
it  hath  had  the  helpe  of  such  rare  and  singular  wits,  as 
from  time  to  time  myght  still  adde  some  amendment  to 
the  same.  Among  whom  I  think  there  is  none  that  will 
gainsay,  but  Master  John  Lyly  hath  deservedly  moste 
high  commendations,  as  he  hath  stept  one  steppe  further 
therein  than  any  either  before  or  since  he  first  began  the 
wyttie  discourse  of  his  Euphues,  whose  works,  surely  in 
respect  of  his  singular  eloquence  and  brave  composition 
of  apt  words  and  sentences,  let  the  learned  examine  and 
make  tryall  thereof,  through  all  the  parts  of  Rethoricke, 
in  fitte  phrases,  in  pithy  sentences,  in  galant  tropes,  in 
flowing  speeche,  in  plaine  sense,  and  surely  in  my 
judgment,  I  think  he  wyll  yeelde  him  that  verdict  which 
Quintillian  giveth  of  both  the  best  orators  Demosthenes 
and  Tully,  that  from  the  one,  nothing  may  be  taken 
away,  to  the  other  nothing  may  be  added1."  After  such 
eulogy,  the  description  of  Lyly  by  another  writer  as 
"alter  Tullius  anglorum"  will  not  seem  strange.  These 
praises  were  not  the  extravagances  of  a  few  uncritical 
admirers;  they  echo  the  verdict  of  the  age.  Lyly's 
enthronement  was  of  short  duration — a  matter  of  some 
ten  years — but,  while  it  lasted,  he  reigned  supreme. 
Such  literary  idolatries  are  by  no  means  uncommon, 
and  often  hold  their  ground  for  a  considerable  period. 
Beside  the  vogue  of  Waller,  for  example,  the  duration 
of  Lyly's  reputation  was  comparatively  brief.  More 
than  a  century  after  the  publication  of  his  poems, 
Waller  was  hailed  by  the  Sidney  Lee  of  the  day  in  the 
Biographia  Britannica  of  1766,  as  "the  most  celebrated 
Lyric  Poet  that  England  ever  produced."  Whence 
comes  this  striking  contrast  between  past  glory  and 
1  A  discourse  of  English  Poetrie,  Arber's  reprint. 


EUPHUISM  13 

present  neglect?  How  is  it  that  a  writer  once  known 
as  the  greatest  master  of  English  prose,  and  a  poet  once 
named  the  most  conspicuous  of  English  lyrists,  are  now 
but  names?  They  have  not  faded  from  memory  owing 
to  a  mere  caprice  of  fashion.  Great  artists  are  subject 
to  an  ebb  and  flow  of  popularity,  for  which  as  yet  no 
tidal  theory  has  been  offered  as  an  explanation;  but 
like  the  sea  they  are  ever  permanent.  The  case  of  our 
two  writers  is  different.  The  wheel  of  time  will  never 
bring  EupJiues  and  Sacharissa  "to  their  own  again." 
They  are  as  dead  as  the  Jacobite  cause.  And  for  that 
very  reason  they  are  all  the  more  interesting  for  the 
literary  historian.  All  writers  are  conditioned  by  their 
environment,  but  some  concern  themselves  with  the 
essentials,  others  with  the  accidents,  of  that  internally 
constant,  but  externally  unstable,  phenomenon,  known 
as  humanity.  Waller  and  Lyly  were  of  the  latter  class. 
Like  jewels  suitable  to  one  costume  only,  they  remained 
in  favour  just  as  long  as  the  fashion  that  created  them 
lasted.  Waller  was  probably  inferior  to  Lyly  as  an 
artist,  but  he  happened  to  strike  a  vein  which  was  not 
exhausted  until  the  end  of  the  i8th  century;  while  the 
vogue  of  EupJiues,  though  at  first  far-reaching,  was  soon 
crossed  by  new  artificialities  such  as  arcadianism.  The 
secret  of  Waller's  influence  was  that  he  stereotyped  a 
new  poetic  form,  a  form  which,  in  its  restraint  and 
precision,  was  exactly  suited  to  the  intellect  of  the 
ancien  regime  with  its  craving  for  form  and  its  contempt 
for  ideas.  The  mainspring  of  Lyly's  popularity  was 
that  he  did  in  prose  what  Waller  did  in  poetry. 

SECTION  I.     The  Anatomy  of  Euphuism. 

The  books  which  have  been  written  upon  the  charac- 
teristics of  Lyly's  prose  are  numberless,  and  far  outweigh 


14  JOHN   LYLY 

the  attention  given  to  his  power  as  a  novelist,  to  say 
nothing  of  his  dramas1.  Indeed  the  absorption  of  the 
critics  in  the  analysis  of  euphuism  seems  to  have  been, 
up  to  a  few  years  ago,  definitely  injurious  to  a  true 
appreciation  of  our  author's  position,  by  blocking  the 
path  to  a  recognition  of  his  importance  in  other  direc- 
tions. And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  it  cannot  be  said 
that  any  adequate  examination  of  the  structure  of  Lyly's 
style  appeared  until  Mr  Child  took  the  matter  in  hand 
in  i8942.  And  Mr  Child  has  performed  his  task  so 
scientifically  and  so  exhaustively  that  he  has  killed  the 
topic  by  making  any  further  treatment  of  it  superfluous. 
This  being  the  case,  a  description  of  the  euphuistic  style 
need  not  detain  us  for  long.  I  shall  content  myself  with 
the  briefest  summary  of  its  characteristics,  drawing  upon 
Mr  Child  for  my  matter,  and  referring  those  who  are 
desirous  of  further  details  to  Mr  Child's  work  itself. 
We  shall  then  be  in  a  position  to  proceed  to  the  more 
interesting,  and  as  yet  unsettled  problem,  of  the  origins 
of  euphuism.  The  great  value  of  Mr  Child's  work  lies 
in  the  fact  that  he  has  at  once  simplified  and  amplified 
the  conclusions  of  previous  investigators.  Dr  Weymouth3 
was  the  first  to  discover  that,  beneath  the  "  curtizan-like 
painted  affectation "  of  euphuism,  there  lay  a  definite 
theory  of  style  and  a  consistent  method  of  procedure. 
Dr  Landmann  carried  the  analysis  still  further  in  his 
now  famous  paper  published  in  the  New  Shakespeare 
Society  s  Transactions  (1880-82).  But  these  two,  and 
those  who  have  followed  them,  have  erred,  on  the  one 
hand  in  implying  that  euphuism  was  much  more  complex 

1  Child,  pp.  6-20,  for  an  account  of  chief  writers  who  have  dealt  with 
euphuism. 

2  John  Lyly  and  Euphuism.     C.  G.  Child. 

3  On  Euphuism,  Phil.  Soc.  Trans.,  1870-2. 


EUPHUISM  15 

than  it  is  in  reality,  and  on  the  other  by  confining  their 
attention  to  single  sentences,  and  so  failing  to  perceive 
that  the  euphuistic  method  was  applicable  to  the  para- 
graph, as  a  whole,  no  less  than  to  the  sentence.  And  it 
is  upon  these  two  points  that  Mr  Child's  essay  is  so 
specially  illuminating.  We  shall  obtain  a  correct  notion 
of  the  "  essential  character  "  of  the  "  euphuistic  rhetoric," 
he  writes,  "  if  we  observe  that  it  employs  but  one  simple 
principle  in  practice,  and  that  it  applies  this,  not  only  to 
the  ordering  of  the  single  sentence,  but  in  every  structural 
relation1":  and  this  simple  principle  is  "the  inducement 
of  artificial  emphasis  through  Antithesis  and  Repetition — 
Antithesis  to  give  pointed  expression  to  the  thought, 
Repetition  to  enforce  it2."  When  Lyly  set  out  to  write 
his  novel,  it  seemed  that  his  intention  was  to  produce 
a  most  elaborate  essay  in  antithesis.  The  book  as  a 
whole,  "  very  pleasant  for  all  gentlemen  to  read  and 
most  necessary  to  remember,"  was  itself  an  antithesis  ; 
the  discourses  it  contains  were  framed  upon  the  same 
plan :  the  sentences  are  grouped  antithetically ;  while 
the  antithesis  is  pointed  by  an  equally  elaborate  repeti- 
tion of  ideas,  of  vowel  sounds  and  of  consonant  sounds. 
Letters,  syllables,  words,  sentences,  sentence  groups, 
paragraphs,  all  are  employed  for  the  purpose  of  pro- 
ducing the  antithetical  style  now  known  as  euphuism. 
An  example  will  serve  to  make  the  matter  clearer. 
Philautus,  upbraiding  his  treacherous  friend  Euphues 
for  robbing  him  of  his  lady's  love,  delivers  himself  of 
the  following  speech :  "  Although  hitherto  Euphues 
I  have  shrined  thee  in  my  heart  for  a  trusty  friend, 
I  will  shunne  thee  hereafter  as  a  trothless  foe,  and 
although  I  cannot  see  in  thee  less  wit  than  I  was  wont, 
yet  do  I  find  less  honesty.  I  perceive  at  the  last 

1  Child,  p.  43.  2  id,,  p.  44. 


1 6  JOHN    LYLY 

(although  being  deceived  it  be  too  late)  that  musk 
though  it  be  sweet  in  the  smell  is  sour  in  the  smack, 
that  the  leaf  of  the  cedar  tree  though  it  be  fair  to  be 
seen,  yet  the  syrup  depriveth  sight — that  friendship 
though  it  be  plighted  by  the  shaking  of  the  hand,  yet 
it  is  shaken  by  the  fraud  of  the  heart.  But  thou  hast 
not  much  to  boast  of,  for  as  thou  hast  won  a  fickle  lady, 
so  hast  thou  lost  a  faithful  friend1."  It  is  impossible  to 
give  an  adequate  idea  of  the  euphuistic  style  save  in 
a  lengthy  quotation,  such  as  the  discourse  of  Eubulus 
selected  by  Mr  Child  for  that  purpose2 ;  but,  within  the 
narrow  limits  of  the  passage  I  have  chosen,  the  main 
characteristics  of  euphuism  are  sufficiently  obvious.  It 
should  be  noticed  how  one  part  of  a  sentence  is  balanced 
by  another  part,  and  how  this  balance  or  "  parallelism  " 
is  made  more  pointed  by  means  of  alliteration,  e.g. 
"  shrined  thee  for  a  trusty  friend,"  "  shun  thee  as  a  troth- 
less  foe "  ;  musk  "  sweet  in  the  smell,"  "  sour  in  the 
smack,"  and  so  on.  The  former  of  these  antitheses  is 
an  example  of  transverse  alliteration,  of  which  so  much 
is  made  by  Dr  Landmann,  but  which,  as  Mr  Child  shows, 
plays  a  subordinate,  and  an  entirely  mechanical,  part  in 
Lyly's  style3.  Lyly's  most  natural  and  most  usual 
method  of  emphasizing  is  by  means  of  simple  allitera- 
tion. On  the  other  hand  it  must  be  noticed  that  he 
employs  alliteration  for  the  sake  of  euphony  alone 
much  more  frequently  than  he  uses  it  for  the  purpose 
of  emphasis.  So  that  we  may  conclude  by  saying  that 
simple  alliteration  forms  the  basis  of  the  euphuistic 
diction,  just  as  we  have  seen  antithesis  forms  the  basis 
of  the  euphuistic  construction.  This  brief  survey  of  the 
framework  of  euphuism  is  far  from  being  an  exhaustive 
analysis.  All  that  is  here  attempted  is  an  enumeration 

1  EufAues,  p.  90.  2  Child,  p.  39.  3  id. ,  p.  46. 


EUPHUISM  I/ 

of  the  most  obvious  marks  of  euphuism,  as  a  necessary 
step  to  an  investigation  of  its  origin,  and  to  a  determina- 
tion of  its  place  in  the  history  of  our  literature. 

Before,  however,  leaving  the  subject  entirely,  we  must 
mention  two  more  characteristics  of  Lyly's  prose  which 
are  very  noticeable,  but  which  come  under  the  head 
of  ornamental,  rather  than  constructional,  devices.  The 
first  of  these  is  a  peculiar  use  of  the  rhetorical  interro- 
gation. Lyly  makes  use  of  it  when  he  wishes  to  portray 
his  characters  in  distress  or  excitement,  and  it  most  fre- 
quently occurs  in  soliloquies.  Sometimes  we  find  a  string 
of  these  interrogations,  at  others  they  are  answered  by 
sentences  beginning  "  ay  but,"  and  occasionally  we  have 
the  "  ay  but "  sentence  with  the  preceding  interrogation 
missing.  I  make  a  special  mention  of  this  point,  as  we 
shall  find  it  has  a  certain  connexion  with  the  subject  of 
the  origins  of  euphuism. 

The  other  ornamental  device  is  one  which  has 
attracted  a  considerable  quantity  of  attention  from 
critics,  and  has  frequently  been  taken  by  itself  as  the 
distinguishing  mark  of  euphuism.  In  point  of  fact,  how- 
ever, the  euphuists  shared  it  with  many  other  writers  of 
their  age,  though  it  is  doubtful  whether  anyone  carried 
it  to  such  extravagant  lengths  as  Lyly.  It  took  the 
form  of  illustrations  and  analogies,  so  excessive  and  over- 
whelming that  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  even  the  idlest 
lady  of  Elizabeth's  court  found  time  or  patience  to  wade 
through  them.  They  consist  first  of  anecdotes  and  allu- 
sions relating  to  historical  or  mythological  persons  of  the 
ancient  world  ;  some  being  drawn  from  Plutarch,  Pliny, 
Ovid,  Virgil,  and  other  sources,  but  many  springing  simply 
from  Lyly's  exuberant  fancy.  In  the  second  place  Eu- 
phues  is  a  collection  of  similes  borrowed  from  "a  fantastical 
natural  history,  a  sort  of  mythology  of  plants  and  stones, 

w.  2 


1 8  JOHN   LYLY 

to  which  the  most  extraordinary  virtues  are  attributed1." 
"  I  have  heard,"  says  Camilla,  bashfully  excusing  herself 
for  taking  up  the  cudgels  of  argument  with  the  learned 
Surius,  "that  the  Tortoise  in  India  when  the  sunne 
shineth,  swimmeth  above  the  water  wyth  hyr  back,  and 
being  delighted  with  the  fine  weather,  forgetteth  her 
selfe  until  the  heate  of  the  sunne  so  harden  her  shell, 
that  she  cannot  sink  when  she  woulde,  whereby  she  is 
caught.  And  so  it  may  fare  with  me  that  in  this  good 
companye  displaying  my  minde,  having  more  regard  to 
my  delight  in  talking,  than  to  the  ears  of  the  hearers,  I 
forget  what  I  speake,  and  so  be  taken  in  something 
I  would  not  utter,  which  happilye  the  itchyng  ears  of 
young  gentlemen  would  so  canvas  that  when  I  would 
call  it  in,  I  cannot,  and  so  be  caught  with  the  Tortoise, 
when  I  would  not2."  And,  when  she  had  finished  her 
discourse,  Surius  again  employs  the  simile  for  the  purpose 
of  turning  a  neat  compliment,  saying,  "  Lady,  if  the  Tor- 
toise you  spoke  of  in  India  were  as  cunning  in  swimming, 
as  you  are  in  speaking,  she  would  neither  fear  the  heate 
of  the  sunne  nor  the  ginne  of  the  Fisher."  This  is  but  a 
mild  example  of  the  "unnatural  natural  philosophy" 
which  Euphues  has  made  famous.  An  unending  pro- 
cession of  such  similes,  often  of  the  most  extravagant 
nature,  runs  throughout  the  book,  and  sometimes  the 
development  of  the  plot  is  made  dependent  on  them. 
Thus  Lucilla  hesitates  to  forsake  Philautus  for  Euphues, 
because  she  feels  that  her  new  lover  will  remember  "that 
the  glasse  once  chased  will  with  the  least  clappe  be 
cracked,  that  the  cloth  which  stayneth  with  milke  will 
soon  loose  his  coulour  with  Vinegar ;  that  the  eagle's 
wing  will  waste  the  feather  as  well  as  of  the  Phoenix,  as 
of  the  Pheasant :  and  that  she  that  hath  become  faith- 

1  Jusserand,  p.  107.  2  Euphues,  p.  402. 


EUPHUISM  19 

lesse  to  one,  will  never  be  faithfull  to  any1."  What  proof 
could  be  more  exact,  what  better  example  could  be  given 
of  the  methods  of  concomitant  variations  ?  It  is  pre- 
cisely the  same  logical  process  which  induces  the  savage 
to  wreak  his  vengeance  by  melting  a  waxen  image  of  his 
enemy,  and  the  farmer  to  predict  a  change  of  weather  at 
the  new  moon. 

Lyly,  however,  was  not  concerned  with  making 
philosophical  generalizations,  or  scientific  laws,  about 
the  world  in  general.  His  natural,  or  unnatural,  phe- 
nomena were  simply  saturated  with  moral  significance  : 
not  that  he  saw  any  connexion  between  the  ethical  pro- 
cess and  the  cosmic  process,  but,  like  every  one  of  his 
contemporaries,  he  employed  the  facts  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life  to  point  a  moral  or  to  help  out  a  sermon. 
The  arguments  he  used  appear  to  us  puerile  in  their  old- 
world  dress,  and  yet  similar  ones  are  to  be  heard  to-day 
in  every  pulpit  where  a  smattering  of  science  is  used  to 
eke  out  a  poverty  of  theology.  And,  to  be  fair,  such 
reasoning  is  not  confined  to  pulpits.  Even  so  eminent 
a  writer  as  Mr  Edward  Carpenter  has  been  known  to 
moralise  on  the  habits  of  the  wild  mustard,  irresistibly 
reminding  us  of  the  "  Camomill  which  the  more  it  is 
trodden  and  pressed  down  the  more  it  speedeth2."  More- 
over the  soi-disant  founder  of  the  inductive  method,  the 
great  Bacon  himself,  is,  as  Liebig3  shows  in  his  amusing 
and  interesting  study  of  the  renowned  "  scientist's " 
scientific  methods,  tarred  with  the  same  mediaeval 
brush,  and  should  be  ranked  with  Lyly  and  the  other 
Elizabethan  "  scholastics "  rather  than  with  men  like 
Harvey  and  Newton. 

1  Euphues,  p.  58.  2  id.,  p.  46. 

3  Lord  Bacon  et  les  sciences  cf  observation  en  moyen  dge,  par  Liebig, 
traduit  par  de  Tchihatchef. 


20  JOHN    LYLY 

Lyly's  natural  history  was  at  any  rate  the  result  of 
learning;  many  of  his  "facts"  were  drawn  from  Pliny, 
while  others  were  to  be  found  in  the  plentiful  crop  of 
mediaeval  bestiaries,  which,  as  Professor  Raleigh  remarks, 
"preceded  the  biological  hand-books."  Perhaps  also  we 
must  again  allow  something  for  Lyly's  invention  ;  for 
lists  of  authorities,  and  footnotes  indicative  of  sources, 
were  not  demanded  of  the  scientist  of  those  days,  and 
one  can  thoroughly  sympathise  with  an  author  who 
found  an  added  zest  in  inventing  the  facts  upon  which 
his  theories  rested.  Have  not  ethical  philosophers  of  all 
ages  been  guilty  of  it  ?  Certainly  Gabriel  Harvey  seems 
to  be  hinting  at  Lyly  when  he  slyly  remarks :  "  I  could 
name  a  party,  that  in  comparison  of  his  own  inventions, 
termed  Pliny  a  barren  wombe1." 

The  affectations  we  have  just  enumerated  are  much 
less  conspicuous  in  the  second  part  of  EupJmes  than  in 
the  first,  and,  though  they  find  a  place  in  his  earlier 
plays,  Lyly  gradually  frees  himself  from  their  influence, 
owing  perhaps  to  the  decline  of  the  euphuistic  fashion, 
but  more  probably  to  the  growth  of  his  dramatic  instinct, 
which  saw  that  such  forms  were  a  drag  upon  the  action 
of  a  play.  And  yet  at  times  Lyly  could  use  his  clumsy 
weapon  with  great  precision  and  effect.  How  admirably, 
for  example,  does  he  express  in  his  antithetical  fashion 
the  essence  of  coquetry.  Iffida,  speaking  to  Fidus  of  one 
she  loved  but  wished  to  test,  is  made  to  say,  "  I  seem 
straight-laced  as  one  neither  accustomed  to  such  suites, 
nor  willing  to  entertain  such  a  servant,  yet  so  warily,  as 
putting  him  from  me  with  my  little  finger,  I  drewe  him 
to  me  with  my  whole  hand2."  Other  little  delicate  turns 
of  phrase  may  be  found  in  the  mine  of  Euphnes — for  the 
digging.  Our  author  was  no  genius,  but  he  had  a  full 

1  Bond,  I.  p.  131  note.  2  Euphues,  p.  299. 


EUPHUISM  21 

measure  of  that  indefinable  quality  known  as  wit ;  and, 
though  the  stylist's  mask  he  wears  is  uncouth  and  rigid, 
it  cannot  always  conceal  the  twinkle  of  his  eyes  More- 
over a  certain  weariness  of  this  sermonizing  on  the  stilts 
of  antithesis  is  often  visible  ;  and  we  may  suspect  that 
he  half  sympathises  with  the  petulant  exclamation  of 
the  sea-sick  Philautus  to  his  interminable  friend  : 

"  In  fayth,  Euphues,  thou  hast  told  a  long  tale,  the 
beginning  I  have  forgotten,  ye  middle  I  understand  not, 
and  the  end  hangeth  not  well  together1 " ;  and  with  this 
piece  of  self-criticism  we  may  leave  Lyly  for  the  present 
and  turn  to  his  predecessors. 

SECTION  II.     The  Origins  of  Euphuism. 

When  we  pass  from  an  analytical  to  an  historical 
consideration  of  the  style  which  Lyly  made  his  own  and 
stamped  for  ever  with  the  name  of  his  hero,  we  come 
upon  a  problem  which  is  at  once  the  most  difficult  and 
the  most  fascinating  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  The 
search  for  a  solution  will  lead  us  far  afield ;  but,  inas- 
much as  the  publication  and  success  of  Euplmes  have 
given  euphuism  its  importance  in  the  history  of  our 
literature,  the  digression,  which  an  attempt  to  trace  the 
origin  of  euphuism  will  necessitate,  can  hardly  be  con- 
sidered outside  the  scope  of  this  book.  Critics  have  long 
since  decided  that  the  peculiar  style,  which  we  have  just 
dissolved  into  its  elements,  was  not  the  invention  of 
Lyly's  genius ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  no  critic,  in  my 
opinion,  has  as  yet  solved  the  problem  of  origins  with 
any  claim  to  finality.  Perhaps  a  tentative  solution  is  all 
that  is  possible  in  the  present  stage  of  our  knowledge. 
It  is,  of  course,  easy  to  point  to  the  book  or  books  from 

1  Euphues,  p.  248. 


22  JOHN    LYLY 

which  Lyly  borrowed,  and  to  dismiss  the  question  thus. 
But  this  simply  evades  the  whole  issue  ;  for,  though  it 
explains  Eup/utes,  it  by  no  means  explains  euphuism. 
Equally  unsatisfactory  is  the  theory  that  euphuism  was 
of  purely  Spanish  origin.  Such  a  solution  has  all  the 
fascination,  and  all  the  dangers,  which  usually  attend  a 
simple  answer  to  a  complex  question.  The  idea  that 
euphuism  was  originally  an  article  of  foreign  production 
was  first  set  on  foot  by  Dr  Landmann.  The  real  father 
of  Lyly's  style,  he  tells  us,  was  Antonio  de  Guevara, 
bishop  of  Guadix,  who  published  in  1529  a  book,  the 
title  of  which  was  as  follows  :  The  book  of  the  emperor 
Marcus  Atirelius  with  a  Diall  for  princes.  This  book 
was  translated  into  English  in  1534  by  Lord  Berners, 
and  again  in  1557  by  Sir  Thomas  North  ;  in  both  cases 
from  a  French  version.  The  two  translations  are  con- 
veniently distinguished  by  their  titles,  that  of  Berners 
being  The  Golden  Boke,  that  of  North  being  The  Diall  of 
Princes.  Dr  Landmann  is  very  positive  with  regard  to 
his  theory,  but  the  fact  that  both  translations  come  from 
the  French  and  not  from  the  Castilian,  seems  to  me  to 
constitute  a  serious  drawback  to  its  acceptance.  And 
moreover  this  theory  does  not  explain  the  really  im- 
portant crux  of  the  whole  matter,  namely  the  reason 
why  a  style  of  this  kind,  whatever  its  origin,  found  a 
ready  acceptance  in  England :  for  fourteen  editions  of 
The  Golden  Boke  are  known  between  1534  and  1588,  a 
number  for  those  days  quite  exceptional  and  showing 
the  existence  of  an  eager  public.  Two  answers  are 
possible  to  the  last  question  ;  that  there  existed  a  large 
body  of  men  in  the  England  of  the  Tudors  who  were 
interested  in  Spanish  literature  of  all  kinds  and  in 
Guevara  among  others  ;  and  that  the  euphuistic  style 
was  already  forming  in  England,  and  that  this  was  the 


EUPHUISM  23 

reason  of  Guevara's  popularity.  In  both  answers  I  think 
there  is  truth  ;  and  I  hope  to  show  that  they  give  us, 
when  combined,  a  fairly  adequate  explanation  of  the 
vogue  of  euphuism  in  our  country.  Let  us  deal  with 
external  influences  first. 

The  upholders  of  the  Spanish  theory  have  contented 
themselves  with  stating  that  Lyly  borrowed  from 
Guevara,  and  pointing  out  the  parallels  between  the  two 
writers.  But  it  is  possible  to  give  their  case  a  greater 
plausibility,  by  showing  that  Guevara  was  no  isolated 
instance  of  such  Spanish  influence,  and  by  proving  that 
during  the  Tudor  period  there  was  a  consistent  and 
far-reaching  interest  in  Spanish  literature  among  a 
certain  class  of  Englishmen.  Intimacy  with  Spain  dates 
from  Henry  VIII.'s  marriage  with  Katherine  of  Aragon, 
though  no  Spanish  book  had  actually  been  translated 
into  English  before  her  divorce.  But  the  period  from 
then  onwards  until  the  accession  of  James  I.,  a  period 
when  Spain  looms  as  largely  in  English  politics  as  does 
France  later,  saw  the  publication  in  London  of  "some 
hundred  and  seventy  volumes  written  either  by  peninsular 
authors,  or  in  the  peninsular  tongues1."  At  such  a  time 
this  number  represents  a  very  considerable  influence; 
and  it  is,  therefore,  no  wonder  that  critics  have  fallen 
victims  to  the  allurements  of  a  theory  which  would 
ascribe  Spanish  origins  for  all  the  various  prose  epidemics 
of  Elizabethan  literature.  To  pair  Lyly  with  Guevara, 
Sidney  with  Montemayor2,  and  Nash  with  Mendoza,  and 
thus  to  point  at  Spain  as  the  parent,  not  only  of  the 
euphuistic,but  also  of  the  pastoral  and  picaresque  romance, 
is  to  furnish  an  explanation  almost  irresistible  in  its 
symmetry.  It  must  have  been  with  the  joy  of  a 

1  Underbill,  p.  339. 

2  id.,  p.  268  note.     Mr  Underbill  writes :  "  The  attempt  to  connect  the 
style  of  Sidney  with  that  of  Montemayor  has  failed." 


24  JOHN    LYLY 

mathematician,  solving  an  intricate  problem,  that 
Dr  Landmann  formulated  this  theory  of  literary  equa- 
tions. But  without  going  to  such  lengths,  without 
pressing  the  connexion  between  particular  writers,  one 
may  admit  that  in  general  Spanish  literature  must 
have  exercised  an  influence  upon  the  Elizabethans. 
Mr  Underhill,  our  latest  authority  on  the  subject,  allows 
this,  while  at  the  same  time  cautioning  us  against  the 
dangers  of  over-estimating  it.  Any  contact  on  the  side 
of  the  lyric  and  the  drama  was,  he  declares,  very  slight1, 
and  the  peninsular  writings  actually  circulated  in  our 
country  at  this  time,  in  translations,  he  divides  into  three 
classes;  occasional  literature,  that  is  topical  tracts  and 
pamphlets  on  contemporary  Spanish  affairs;  didactic 
literature,  comprising  scientific  treatises,  accounts  of 
voyages  such  as  inspired  Hakluyt,  works  on  military 
science,  and,  more  important  still,  the  religious  writings 
of  mystics  like  Granada;  and  lastly  artistic  prose.  The 
last  item,  which  alone  concerns  us,  is  by  far  the  smallest 
of  the  three,  and  by  itself  amounts  to  less  than  half  the 
translations  from  Italian  literature;  moreover  most  of 
the  Spanish  translations  under  this  head  came  into 
England  after  1580,  and  could  not  therefore  have 
influenced  Lyly's  novel.  But  of  course  the  Libra  Aureo 
had  been  englished  long  before  this,  while  the  Lazarillo 
de  T6rmes,  Mendoza's2  picaresque  romance,  was  given 
an  English  garb  by  Rowland  in  1576,  and,  though 
Montemayor's  Diana  was  not  translated  until  1596, 
Spanish  and  French  editions  of  it  had  existed  in  England 
long  previous  to  that  date.  Perhaps  most  important 
of  all  was  the  famous  realistic  novel  Celestina,  which  was 
well  known,  in  a  French  translation,  to  Englishmen  at 

1  Underbill,  p.  48,  but  see  Martin  Hume,  ch.  ix. 

1  Some   doubt   has   been   thrown   upon    Mendoza's   authorship.     See 
Fitzmaurice-Kelly,  p.  158,  and  Martin  Hume,  p.  133. 


EUPHUISM  25 

the  beginning  of  the  i6th  century,  and  was  denounced 
by  Vives  at  Oxford.  It  was  actually  translated  into 
English  as  early  as  I53O1.  There  was  on  the  whole, 
therefore,  quite  an  appreciable  quantity  of  Spanish 
artistic  literature  circulating  in  England  before  Euphues 
saw  the  light. 

This  literary  invasion  will  seem  perfectly  natural 
if  we  bear  in  mind  the  political  conditions  of  the  day. 
Under  Mary,  England  had  been  all  but  a  Spanish 
dependency,  and,  though  in  the  next  reign,  she  threw 
off  the  yoke,  the  antagonism  which  existed  probably 
acted  as  an  even  greater  literary  stimulus  than  the 
former  alliance.  Throughout  the  whole  of  Elizabeth's 
rule,  the  English  were  continually  coming  into  contact 
with  the  Spaniards,  either  in  trade,  in  ecclesiastical 
matters,  in  politics,  or  in  actual  warfare;  and  again  the 
magnificence  of  the  great  Spanish  empire,  and  the 
glamour  which  surrounded  its  connexion  with  the  new 
world,  were  very  attractive  to  the  Englishmen  of 
Elizabeth's  day,  especially  as  they  were  desirous  of 
emulating  the  achievements  of  Spain.  And  lastly 
it  may  be  noticed  that  English  and  Spanish  conditions 
of  intellectual  life,  if  we  shut  our  eyes  to  the  religious 
differences,  were  very  similar  at  this  time.  Both  countries 
had  replaced  a  shattered  feudal  system  by  an  absolute 
and  united  monarchy.  Both  countries  owed  an  immense 
debt  to  Italy,  and,  in  both,  the  Italian  influence  took 
a  similar  form,  modified  on  the  one  hand  by  humanism, 
and  on  the  other  by  feelings  of  patriotism,  if  not  of 
imperialism.  Spain  and  England  took  the  Renaissance 
fever  more  coldly,  and  at  the  same  time  more  seriously, 
than  did  Italy.  And  in  both  the  new  movement  even- 
tually assumed  the  character  of  intellectual  asceticism 
1  Martin  Hume,  p.  126. 


26  JOHN    LYLY 

moulded  by  the  sombre  hand  of  religious  fanaticism; 
for  Spain  was  the  cradle  of  the  Counter-Reformation, 
England  of  Puritanism. 

Leaving  the  general  issue,  let  us  now  try  to  establish 
a  partial  connexion  between  our  author,  or  at  least  his 
surroundings,  and  Spanish  influences.  And  here  I  think 
a  suggestive,  if  not  a  strong  case,  can  be  made  out. 
Ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  i6th  century  a  Spanish 
tradition  had  existed  at  Oxford.  Vives,  the  Spanish 
humanist,  and  the  friend  of  Erasmus,  was  in  1517 
admitted  Fellow  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  and  in  1523 
became  reader  in  rhetoric  ;  and,  though  he  was  banished 
in  1528,  at  the  time  of  the  divorce,  it  seems  that  he  was 
continually  lecturing  before  the  University  during  the 
five  years  of  his  residence  there.  The  circle  of  his  friends, 
though  quite  distinct  from  the  contemporary  Berners- 
Guevara  group,  included  many  interesting  men,  and 
among  others  the  famous  Sir  John  Cheke.  Under  Mary 
we  naturally  find  two  Spanish  professors  at  Oxford, 
Pedro  de  Soto  and  Juan  de  Villa  Garcia.  But  Elizabeth 
maintained  the  tradition;  and  in  1559  she  offered  a 
chair  at  Oxford  to  a  Spanish  Protestant,  Guerrero. 
The  important  name,  however,  in  our  connexion  is 
Antonio  de  Corro,  who  resided  as  a  student  at  Christ 
Church  from  1575  to  1585,  thus  being  a  contemporary 
of  Lyly,  though  it  is  impossible  to  say  whether  they 
were  acquainted  or  not.  Lyly  had,  however,  another 
Oxford  contemporary  who  certainly  took  a  keen  interest 
in  Spanish  literature,  possessing  a  knowledge  of  Castilian, 
though  himself  an  Englishman.  This  was  Hakluyt,  who 
must  have  been  known  to  Lyly  ;  and  for  the  following 
reason.  In  1597  Henry  Lok1  published  a  volume  of 
religious  poems  to  which  Lyly  contributed  commenda- 

1  Bond,  I.  p.  67. 


EUPHUISM  27 

tory  verses.  On  the  other  hand  Hakluyt's  first  book 
was  supplemented  by  a  woodcut  map  executed  by  his 
friend  Michael  Lok1,  brother  of  Thomas  Lok  the  Spanish 
merchant,  and  uncle  to  the  aforesaid  Henry.  It  seems 
highly  improbable,  therefore,  that  Lyly  and  Hakluyt 
possessing  these  common  friends  could  have  remained 
unknown  to  each  other  at  Oxford.  Indeed  we  may  feel 
justified  in  supposing  that  Hakluyt,  Sidney,  Carew,  Lyly, 
Thomas  Lodge,  and  Thomas  Rogers  (the  translator  of 
Estelld)  were  all  personally  acquainted,  if  not  intimate, 
at  the  University.  Another  and  very  important  name 
may  be  added  to  this  list,  that  of  Stephen  Gosson,  who, 
"  a  Kentish  man  born "  like  our  hero,  and  entering 
Oxford  a  year  after  him  (in  1572),  must,  I  feel  sure, 
have  been  one  of  his  friends.  The  fact  that  he  was 
at  first  interested  in  acting,  and  is  said  to  have  written 
comedies,  goes  a  long  way  to  confirm  this.  We  are  also 
led  to  suppose  that  he  had  devoted  some  attention  to 
Spanish  literature,  and  that  he  was  probably  acquainted 
with  Hakluyt  and  the  Loks,  from  certain  verses  of  his, 
printed  at  the  end  of  Thomas  Nicholas'  Pleasant  History 
of  the  Conquest  of  West  India,  a  translation  of  Cortes' 
book  published  in  I5782.  Taking  all  this  into  conside- 
ration, it  is  extremely  interesting  to  find  Gosson  publish- 
ing in  1579  his  famous  Schoole  of  Abuse,  which  bears 
most  of  the  distinguishing  marks  of  euphuism  already 
noted,  but  which  can  scarcely  have  been  modelled  upon 
Lyly's  work  ;  for  as  Professor  Saintsbury  writes :  "  the 
very  short  interval  between  the  appearance  of  Euphues 
and  the  Schoole  of  Abuse,  shows  that  he  must  rather 
have  mastered  the  Lylian  style  in  the  same  circumstances 

1  Underbill,  p.  178,10  whom  I  am  indebted  for  nearly  all  the  preceding 
remarks  in  connexion  with  the  Spanish  atmosphere  at  Oxford. 

2  Arber's  reprint,  School  of  Abuse,  p.  97. 


28  JOHN    LYLY 

and  situations  as  Lyly  than  have  directly  borrowed  it 
from  his  fellow  at  Oxford1."  And  moreover  Gosson's 
style  does  not  read  like  an  imitation  of  Lyly.  The 
same  tricks  and  affectations  are  employed,  but  they  are 
employed  differently  and  perhaps  more  effectively. 

Lyly  is  again  found  in  contact  with  the  Spanish  atmo- 
sphere, as  one  of  the  dependents  of  the  Earl  of  Oxford, 
who  patronized  Robert  Baker,  George  Baker,  and 
Anthony  Munday,  who  were  all  under  the  "  spell  of  the 
peninsula2."  But  we  cannot  be  certain  when  his  relations 
with  de  Vere  commenced,  and  unless  we  can  feel  sure 
that  they  had  begun  before  the  writing  of  Euphues,  the 
point  is  not  of  importance  for  our  present  argument. 

These  facts  are  of  course  little  more  than  hints,  but 
I  think  they  are  sufficient  to  establish  a  fairly  strong 
probability  that  Lyly  was  one  of  a  literary  set  at  Oxford 
(as  I  have  already  suggested  in  dealing  with  his  life)  the 
members  of  which  were  especially  interested  in  Spanish 
literature,  perhaps  through  the  influence  of  Corro.  It 
seems  extremely  improbable  that  Lyly  himself  possessed 
any  knowledge  of  Castilian,  and  it  is  by  no  means  neces- 
sary to  show  that  he  did,  for  it  is  quite  sufficient  to  point 
out  that  he  must  have  been  continually  in  the  presence 
of  those  who  were  discussing  peninsular  writings,  and 
that  in  this  way  he  would  have  come  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  most  famous  Spanish  book  which  had  yet  received 
translation,  the  Libra  Aiireo  of  Guevara. 

But  we  are  still  left  with  the  question  on  our  hands ; 
why  was  this  book  the  most  famous  peninsular  pro- 
duction of  Lyly's  day  ?  It  is  a  question  which  no  critic, 
as  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  ever  formulated,  and  yet  it 
seems  endowed  with  the  greatest  importance.  We  have 
seen  how  and  why  Spanish  literature  in  general  found 

1  Craik,  vol.  i.  2  Underbill,  ch.  vm.  §  2. 


EUPHUISM  29 

a  reception  in  England.  But  the  special  question  as  to 
the  ascendancy  of  Guevara  obviously  requires  a  special 
answer.  Guevara  was  of  course  well  known  all  over  the 
continent,  and  it  might  seem  that  this  was  a  sufficient 
explanation  of  his  popularity  in  England.  In  reality, 
however,  such  an  explanation  is  no  solution  at  all,  it 
merely  widens  the  issue  ;  for  we  are  still  left  asking  for 
a  reason  of  his  continental  fame.  The  problem  requires 
a  closer  investigation  than  it  has  at  present  received. 
It  was  undoubtedly  Guevara's  alto  estilo  which  gave  his 
writings  their  chief  attraction  ;  and  a  style  so  elaborate 
would  only  find  a  reception  in  a  favourable  atmosphere, 
that  is  among  those  who  had  already  gone  some  way 
towards  the  creation  of  a  similar  style  themselves. 
A  priori  therefore  the  answer  to  our  question  would  be 
that  Guevara  was  no  isolated  stylist,  but  only  the  most 
famous  example  of  a  literary  phase,  which  had  its 
independent  representatives  all  over  Europe.  A  con- 
sideration of  English  prose  under  the  Tudors  will, 
I  think,  fully  confirm  this  conclusion  as  far  as  our  own 
country  is  concerned,  and  it  will  also  offer  us  an  expla- 
nation, in  terms  of  internal  development,  of  the  origin 
and  sources  of  euphuism. 

We  have  noticed  with  suspicion  that  our  two  trans- 
lators took  their  Guevara  from  the  French.  And  it  is 
therefore  quite  legitimate  to  suppose  that  Berners  and 
North,  separated  as  they  were  from  the  original,  were  as 
much  creators  as  translators  of  the  euphuistic  style.  But 
there  are  other  circumstances  connected  with  Berners, 
which  are  much  more  fatal  to  Dr  Landmann's  theory 
than  this.  In  the  first  place  it  appears  that  the  part 
played  by  Berners  in  the  history  of  euphuism  has  been 
considerably  under-estimated.  Mr  Sidney  Lee  was  the 
first  to  combat  the  generally  accepted  view  in  a  criticism 


30  JOHN    LYLY 

of  Mrs  Humphry  Ward's  article  on  Euphuism  in  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  in  which  she  follows  Dr  Land- 
mann.  His  criticism,  which  appeared  in  the  Athen&um, 
was  afterwards  enlarged  in  an  appendix  to  his  edition 
of  Berners'  translation  of  Huon  of  Bordeaux.  "  Lord 
Berners'  sentences,"  Mr  Lee  writes,  "  are  euphuistic 
beyond  all  question;  they  are  characterized  by  the 
forced  antitheses,  alliteration,  and  the  far-fetched  illus- 
trations from  natural  phenomena,  peculiar  to  Lyly  and 
his  successors1."  He  denies,  moreover,  that  Berners 
was  any  less  euphuistic  than  North,  and  gives  parallel 
extracts  from  their  translations  to  prove  this.  A  com- 
parison of  the  two  passages  in  question  can  leave  no 
doubt  that  Mr  Lee's  deduction  is  correct.  Mr  Bond 
therefore  is  in  grave  error  when  he  writes,  "  North 
endeavoured  what  Berners  had  not  aimed  at,  to  repro- 
duce in  his  Diall  the  characteristics  of  Guevara's  style, 
with  the  notable  addition  of  an  alliteration  natural  to 
English  but  not  to  Spanish ;  and  it  is  he  who  must  be 
regarded  as  the  real  founder  of  our  euphuistic  literary 
fashion2."  Lyly  may  indeed  have  borrowed  from  North 
rather  than  from  Berners;  but,  if  Berners'  English  was 
as  euphuistic  as  North's,  and  if  Berners  could  show 
fourteen  editions  to  North's  two  before  1580,  it  is 
Berners  and  not  North  who  must  be  described  as  "  the 
real  founder  of  our  euphuistic  literary  fashion."  And 
as  Mr  Lee  shows,  his  nephew  Sir  Francis  Bryan  must 
share  the  title  with  him,  for  the  colophon  of  the  Golden 
Boke  states  that  the  translation  was  undertaken  "  at  the 
instaunt  desire  of  his  nevewe  Sir  Francis  Bryan  Knyghte." 
It  was  Bryan  also  who  wrote  the  passage  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  Boke  applauding  the  "swete  style3." 

1  Huon  of  Bordeaux,  appendix  I.,  Lord  Berners  and  Euphuism,  p.  786. 

2  Bond,  I.  p.  158.  3  See  Athenaum,  July  14,  1883. 


EUPHUISM  .  31 

This  Sir  Francis  Bryan  was  a  favourite  of  Henry  VIII., 
a  friend  of  Surrey  and  Wyatt,  possibly  of  Ascham  and 
of  his  master  Cheke,  in  fact  a  very  well-known  figure  at 
court  and  in  the  literary  circles  of  his  day1.  Euphuism 
must,  therefore,  have  had  a  considerable  vogue  even  in 
the  days  of  Henry  VIII.  If  it  could  be  shown  that 
Bryan  could  read  Castilian,  the  Guevara  theory  might 
still  possess  some  plausibility,  for  it  would  be  argued 
that  Berners  learnt  his  style  from  his  nephew.  But, 
though  we  know  Bryan  to  have  entertained  a  peculiar 
affection  for  Guevara's  writings,  there  is  no  evidence  to 
prove  that  he  could  read  them  in  the  original.  Indeed 
when  he  set  himself  to  translate  Guevara's  Dispraise  of 
the  life  of  a  courtier,  he,  like  his  uncle,  had  to  go  to  a 
French  translation2.  Wherever  we  turn,  in  fact,  we  are 
met  by  this  French  barrier  between  Guevara  and  his 
English  translators,  which  seems  to  preclude  the  possi- 
bility of  his  style  having  exercised  the  influence  ascribed 
to  it  by  Dr  Landmann  and  those  who  follow  him. 

But  there  is  more  behind:  and  we  cannot  help  feeling 
convinced  that  the  facts  we  are  now  about  to  bring 
forward  ought  to  dispose  of  the  Landmann-Guevara 
theory  once  and  for  all.  In  the  article  before  mentioned 
Mr  Lee  goes  on  to  say  :  "  The  translator's  prologue  to 
Lord  Berners'  Froissart  written  in  1524  and  that  to  be 
found  in  other  of  his  works  show  him  to  have  come 
under  Guevara's  or  a  similar  influence  before  he  trans- 
lated the  Golden  Bokez."  Here  is  an  extract  from  the 
prologue  in  question.  "  The  most  profitable  thing  in  this 

1  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.,  Bryan. 

2  The  2nd  edition  of  this  book,  which  was  published  under  another  title, 
is  thus  described  in  the  B.  M.  Cat.:  "A  looking-glass  for  the  court '..  .out  of 
Castilian  drawne  into  French  by  A.  Alaygre  ;  and  out  of  the  French  into 
English  by  Sir  F.  Briant." 

3  Huon,  p.  787. 


32  JOHN    LYLY 

world  for  the  institution  of  the  human  life  is  history. 
Once  the  continual  reading  thereof  maketh  young  men 
equal  in  prudence  to  old  men,  and  to  old  fathers  striken 
in  age  it  ministereth  experience  of  things.  More  it 
yieldeth  private  persons  worthy  of  dignity,  rule  and 
governance :  it  compelleth  the  emperors,  high  rulers, 
and  governors  to  do  noble  deeds  to  the  end  they  may 
obtain  immortal  glory :  it  exciteth,  moveth  and  stirreth 
the  strong,  hardy  warriors,  for  the  great  laud  that  they 
have  after  they  lie  dead,  promptly  to  go  in  hand  with 
great  and  hard  perils  in  defence  of  their  country :  and  it 
prohibiteth  reproveable  persons  to  do  mischievous  deeds 
for  fear  of  infamy  and  shame.  So  thus  through  the 
monuments  of  writing  which  is  the  testimony  unto  virtue 
many  men  have  been  moved,  some  to  build  cities,  some 
to  devise  and  establish  laws  right,  profitable,  necessary 
and  behoveful  for  the  human  life,  some  other  to  find  new 
arts,  crafts  and  sciences,  very  requisite  to  the  use  of 
mankind.  But  above  all  things,  whereby  man's  wealth 
riseth,  special  laud  and  praise  ought  to  be  given  to 
history  :  it  is  the  keeper  of  such  things  as  have  been 
virtuously  done,  and  the  witness  of  evil  deeds,  and  by 
the  benefit  of  history  all  noble,  high  and  virtuous  acts  be 
immortal.  What  moved  the  strong  and  fierce  Hercules 
to  enterprise  in  his  life  so  many  great  incomparable 
labours  and  perils  ?  Certainly  nought  else  but  that  for 
his  great  merit  immortality  might  be  given  him  of  all 
folk....  Why  moved  and  stirred  Phalerius  the  King 
Ptolemy  oft  and  diligently  to  read  books  ?  Forsooth 
for  no  other  cause  but  that  those  things  are  found  written 
in  books  that  the  friends  dare  not  show  to  the  prince1." 
This  is  of  course  far  from  being  the  full-blown  euphuism 
of  Lyly  or  Pettie,  yet  we  cannot  but  agree  with  Mr  Lee, 

1  Froissart,  Globe  edition,  p.  xxviii. 


EUPHUISM  33 

when  he  declares  that  "the  parallelism  of  the  sentences, 
the  repetition  of  the  same  thought  differently  expressed, 
the  rhetorical  question,  the  accumulation  of  synonyms, 
the  classical  references,  are  irrefutable  witnesses  to  the 
presence  of  euphuism1."  But  Mr  Lee  appeared  to  be 
quite  unconscious  of  the  full  significance  of  his  discovery. 
It  means  that  Berners  was  writing  euphuism  in  1 5  24,  five 
years  before  Guevara  publisfied  his  book  in  Spain.  No 
critic,  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  has  shown 
any  consciousness  of  this  significant  fact2,  which  is  of 
course  of  the  utmost  importance  in  this  connexion;  as,  if 
it  is  to  carry  all  the  weight  that  is  at  first  sight  due  to  it, 
the  theory  that  euphuism  was  a  mere  borrowing  from 
the  Spanish  must  be  pronounced  entirely  exploded. 
But  it  is  as  well  not  to  be  over-confident.  Guevara's 
Libra  Aureo,  his  earliest  work,  was  undoubtedly  first 
published  by  his  authority  in  1529,  but  there  seems  to  be 
a  general  feeling  that  the  book  had  previously  appeared 
in  pirated  form.  This  feeling  is  based  upon  the  title  of 
the  1529  edition3,  which  describes  the  book  as  "  nueua- 
mente  reuisto  por  su  sefwria,"  and  upon  certain  remarks 
of  Hallam  in  his  Literature  of  Europe.  Though  I  can 
find  no  confirmation  for  the  statements  he  makes  upon 
the  authority  of  a  certain  Dr  West  of  Dublin,  yet  the 
words  of  so  well  known  a  writer  cannot  be  ignored.  He 
quotes  Dr  West  in  a  footnote  as  follows  :  "  There  are 

1  Huon,  p.  788. 

'2  After  writing  the  above  I  have  noticed  that  Mr  G.  C.  Macaulay, 
in  the  Introduction  to  the  Globe  Froissart,  writes  as  follows  (p.  xvi) : 
"  If  nothing  else  could  be  adduced  to  show  that  the  tendency  (i.e.  euphuism) 
existed  already  in  English  literature,  the  prefaces  to  Lord  Berners'  Frois- 
sart written  before  he  could  possibly  have  read  Guevara,  would  be  enough 
to  prove  it." 

3  There  are  two  extant  editions  of  1529,   (i)  published  at  Valladolid, 
from  which  the  words  above  are  quoted,  (ii)  published  at  Enueres,  which 
appears  to  be  an  earlier  edition.     Copies  of  both  in  the  British  Museum, 
w.  3 


34  JOHN    LYLY 

some  circumstances  connected  with  the  Relax  (i.e.  the 
sub-title  of  the  Libro  Aureo)  not  generally  known,  which 
satisfactorily  account  for  various  erroneous  statements 
that  have  been  made  on  the  subject  by  writers  of  high 
authority.  The  fact  is  that  Guevara,  about  the  year  1518, 
commenced  a  life  and  letters  of  M.  Aurelius  which  pur- 
ported to  be  a  translation  of  a  Greek  work  found  in 
Florence.  Having  sometime  afterwards  lent  this  MS.  to 
the  emperor  it  was  surreptitiously  copied  and  printed,  as 
he  informs  us  himself,  first  in  Seville  and  afterwards  in 

Portugal Guevara  himself  subsequently  published  it 

(i 529)  with  considerable  additions1."  From  this  it  ap- 
pears that  previous  unauthorised  editions  of  Guevara's 
book  had  been  published  before  1529.  Might  not 
Berners  therefore  have  come  under  Guevara's  influence 
as  early  as  1524?  We  must  concede  that  it  is  possible, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  such 
a  contingency  seem  almost  insuperable.  In  the  first  place, 
if  we  are  to  believe  Dr  West,  Guevara  did  not  begin  to 
write  his  work  before  1518,  and  it  was  not  until  "some 
time  afterwards  "  (whatever  this  may  mean)  that  it  was 
"  surreptitiously  copied  and  printed."  It  would  require 
a  bold  man  to  assert  that  a  book  thus  published  could 
be  influencing  the  style  of  an  English  writer  as  early  as 
1524.  But  further  it  must  be  remembered  that  Berners 
almost  certainly  could  not  read  Castilian2.  Now  the 
earliest  known  French  translation  of  Guevara  is  one  by 
Rene  Bertaut  in  1531,  which  Berners  himself  is  known 
to  have  used3.  Therefore,  if  Berners  was  already  under 
Guevara's  influence  in  1524,  he  must  have  known  of  an 

1  Hallam,  Lit,  of  Europe,  ed.  1855,  vol.  I.  p.  403  n.  Brunei  in  his 
Manuel  de  Libraire  gives  Hallam's  view  without  comment,  tome  II. 
*'  Guevara." 

2  Underhill,  p.  69.  3  Bond,  vol.  I.  p.  137. 


EUPHUISM  35 

earlier  French  pirated  translation  of  an  earlier  pirated 
edition  of  the  Libra  Aureo,  To  sum  up;  if  the  euphuistic 
tendency  in  English  prose  is  to  be  ascribed  entirely,  or 
even  mainly,  to  the  influence  of  Guevara's  Libra  Aureo, 
we  must  digest  four  improbabilities :  (i)  that  there  existed 
a  pirated  edition  of  the  book  in  Spain  earlier  than  1524: 
(ii)  that  this  had  been  translated  into  French,  also  before 
1524,  although  the  version  of  Bertaut  in  1531  is  the 
earliest  French  translation  we  have  any  trace  of:  (iii)  that 
Berners  himself  had  come  across  this  hypothetical  French 
edition,  again  before  1524:  and  (iv)  that  the  French 
translation  had  so  faithfully  reproduced  the  style  of  the 
original,  that  Berners  was  able  to  translate  it  from  French 
into  English,  for  the  purpose  of  his  prologue  to  Froissart. 
In  face  of  these  facts,  the  Guevara  theory  is  no 
longer  tenable  ;  and  in  consequence  the  whole  situation 
is  reversed,  and  we  approach  the  problem  from  the 
natural  side,  the  side  from  which  it  should  have  been 
approached  from  the  first — that  is  from  the  English  and 
not  the  Spanish  side.  I  say  the  natural  side,  because  it 
seems  to  me  obvious  that  the  popularity  of  a  foreign 
author  in  any  country  implies  the  existence  in  that 
country,  previous  to  the  introduction  of  the  author,  of 
an  atmosphere  (or  more  concretely  a  public)  favourable 
to  the  distinguishing  characteristics  of  the  author  intro- 
duced. And  so  it  now  appears  that  Guevara  found 
favour  in  England  because  his  style,  or  something  very 
like  it,  was  already  known  there ;  and  it  was  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  that  Berners,  who  shows  that 
style  most  prominently,  should  have  been  the  channel  by 
which  Guevara  became  known  to  English  readers.  The 
whole  problem  of  this  i6th  century  prose  is  analogous  to 
that  of  1 8th  century  verse.  The  solution  of  both  was  for 
a  long  time  found  in  foreign  influence.  It  was  natural 

3—2 


36  JOHN    LYLY 

to  assume  that  France,  the  pivot  of  our  foreign  policy  at 
the  end  of  the  I7th  century,  gave  us  the  classical  move- 
ment, and  that  Spain,  equally  important  politically  in 
the  1 6th  century,  gave  us  euphuism.  Closer  investigation 
has  disproved  both  these  theories1,  showing  that,  while 
foreign  influence  was  undoubtedly  an  immense  factor  in 
the  development  of  these  literary  fashions,  their  real  origin 
was  English. 

The  proof  of  this  does  not  rest  entirely  on  the  case  of 
Berners.  We  might  even  concede  that  he  was  acquainted 
with  an  earlier  edition  of  Guevara,  and  that  his  style  was 
actually  derived  from  Spanish  sources,  without  surren- 
dering our  thesis  that  euphuism  was  a  natural  growth. 
Berners'  euphuism,  whatever  its  origin,  was  premature  ; 
and,  though  the  Golden  Boke  passed  through  twelve 
editions  between  1534  and  1560,  we  cannot  say  that  its 
style  influenced  English  writing  until  the  time  of  Lyly, 
for  its  vogue  was  confined  to  a  small  class  of  readers, 
designated  by  Mr  Underhill  as  the  "  Guevara-group."  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  possible  to  trace  a  feeling  towards 
euphuism  among  writers  who  were  quite  outside  this 
group. 

Latimer,  for  example,  delighted  in  alliterative  turns 
of  speech,  though  the  antithetical  mannerisms  are  absent 
in  him.  His  famous  denunciation  of  the  unpreaching 
prelates  is  an  excellent  instance : 

"  But  now  for  the  faults  of  unpreaching  prelates, 
methink  I  could  guess  what  might  be  said  for  the  ex- 
cusing of  them.  They  are  so  troubled  with  lordly  living, 
they  be  so  placed  in  palaces,  couched  in  courts,  ruffling 
in  their  rents,  dancing  in  their  dominions,  burdened  with 
ambassages,  pampering  of  their  paunches  like  a  monk 
that  maketh  his  jubilee,  munching  in  their  mangers,  and 

1  For  1 8th  century  v.  Gosse,  From  Shakespeare  to  Pope. 


EUPHUISM  37 

moiling  in  their  gay  manors  and  mansions,  and  so 
troubled  with  loitering  in  their  lordships,  that  they 
cannot  attend  it." 

Here  is  no  transverse  alliteration,  such  as  we  find  so 
frequently  in  Lyly,  but  a  simple  alliteration — "  a  rudi- 
mentary euphuism  of  balanced  and  alliterative  phrases, 
probably  like  the  alliteration  of  Anglo-Saxon  homilies, 
borrowed  from  popular  poetry1."  Latimer  also  employs 
the  responsive  method  so  frequently  used  by  Lyly.  "But 
ye  say  it  is  new  learning.  Now  I  tell  you  it  is  old 
learning.  Yea,  ye  say,  it  is  old  heresy  new  scoured. 
Nay,  I  tell  you  it  is  old  truth  long  rusted  with  your 
canker,  and  now  made  new  bright  and  scoured."  It  is 
no  long  step  from  this  to  the  rhetorical  question  and  its 

formal  answer  "  ay  but ."  Alliteration  is  not  found 

in  Guevara ;  it  was  an  addition,  and  a  very  important 
one,  made  by  his  translators.  This  was  at  any  rate  a 
purely  native  product,  and  cannot  be  assigned  to  Spain. 
The  antithesis  and  parallelism  were  the  fruits  of  humanism, 
and  they  appear,  combined  with  Latimer's  alliteration,  in 
the  writings  of  Sir  John  Cheke  and  his  pupil  Roger 
Ascham.  Cheke's  famous  criticism  of  Sallust's  style,  as 
being  "  more  art  than  nature  and  more  labour  than  art," 
introduces  us  at  once  to  euphuism,  and  gives  us  by  the 
way  a  very  excellent  comment  upon  it.  Again  he  speaks 
of  "  magistrates  more  ready  to  tender  all  justice  and  piti- 
full  in  hearing  the  poor  man's  causes  which  ought  to 
amend  matters  more  than  you  can  devise  and  were  ready 
to  redress  them  better  than  you  can  imagine5"';  which  is 
a  good  example  of  the  euphuistic  combination  of  alliter- 
ation and  balance. 

In  Ascham  the  style  is  still  more  marked.  There 
are,  indeed,  so  many  examples  of  euphuism  in  the 

1  Craik,  vol.  I.  p.  224.  2  Craik,  p.  258. 


38  JOHN    LYLY 

Schoolmaster  and  in  the  Toxophilus,  that  one  can  only 
select.  As  an  illustration  of  transverse  alliteration  quite 
as  complex  as  any  in  Euphues,  we  may  notice  the  fol- 
lowing: "Hard  wittes  be  hard  to  receive,  but  sure  to 
keep ;  painfull  without  weariness,  hedefull  without  wa- 
vering, constant  without  any  new  fanglednesse ;  bearing 
heavie  things,  though  not  lightlie,  yet  willinglie ;  entering 
hard  things  though  not  easily,  yet  depelie1."  Classical 
allusions  abound  throughout  Ascham's  work,  and  he 
occasionally  indulges  in  the  ethics  of  natural  history  as 
follows  : 

"  Young  Graftes  grow  not  onlie  sonest,  but  also 
fairest  and  bring  always  forth  the  best  and  sweetest 
fruite ;  young  whelps  learne  easilie  to  carrie ;  young 
Popingeis  learne  quickly  to  speak  ;  and  so,  to  be  short, 
if  in  all  other  things  though  they  lacke  reason,  sense,  and 
life,  the  similitude  of  youth  is  fittest  to  all  goodnesse, 
surelie  nature  in  mankinde  is  more  beneficial  and  effec- 
tual in  this  behalfeV 

We  know  that  Lyly  had  read  the  Schoolmaster,  as  he 
took  the  very  title  of  his  book  from  its  description  of 
EiJ^u^v  as  "he  that  is  apte  by  goodnesse  of  witte  and 
applicable  by  readiness  of  will  to  learning  " — a  descrip- 
tion which  is  in  itself  a  euphuism  ;  and  it  is  probable 
that  he  knew  his  Ascham  as  thoroughly  as  he  did  his 
Guevara. 

Sir  Henry  Craik  has  some  very  pertinent  remarks 
on  the  peculiarities  of  Ascham's  style.  "One  of  these," 
he  writes,  "is  his  proneness  to  alliteration,  due  perhaps 
to  his  desire  to  reproduce  the  most  striking  features  of 

the  Early  English A  tendency  of  an  almost  directly 

opposite  kind  is  the  balance  of  sentences  which  he 
imitates  from  Classical  models These  two  are 

1  Arber,  Schoolmaster,  p.  35.  2  id.,  p.  46. 


EUPHUISM  39 

perhaps  the  most  striking  characteristics  of  Ascham's 
prose;  and  it  is  interesting  to  observe  how  much  the 
structure  of  the  sentence  in  the  more  elaborated  stages 
of  English  prose  is  due  to  their  combination1."  Here 
we  have  the  two  elements  of  our  native-grown  euphuism, 
and  their  origins,  carefully  distinguished.  Of  course 
with  euphuism  we  do  not  commence  English  prose; 
that  is  already  centuries  old ;  but  we  are  dealing  with 
the  beginnings  of  English  prose  style,  by  which  we  mean 
a  conscious  and  artistic  striving  after  literary  effect. 
That  the  first  stylists  should  look  to  the  rhetoricians  for 
their  models  was  inevitable,  and  of  these  there  were  two 
kinds  available;  the  classical  orators  and  the  alliterative 
homilies  of  the  Early  English.  But,  deferring  this  point 
for  a  later  treatment,  let  us  conclude  our  study  of  the 
evolution  of  euphuism  in  England. 

So  far  we  have  been  dealing  with  euphuistic  tendencies 
only,  since  in  the  style  of  Ascham  and  his  predecessors, 
alliteration  and  antithesis  are  not  employed  consistently, 
but  merely  on  occasion  for  the  sake  of  emphasis.  Other 
marks  of  euphuism,  such  as  the  fantastic  embroidery  of 
mythical  beasts  and  flowers,  are  absent.  Even  in  North's 
Diall  alliteration  is  not  profuse,  and  similes  from  natural 
history  are  comparatively  rare.  In  George  Pettie, 
however,  we  find  a  complete  euphuist  before  EupJiues. 
This  writer  again  brings  us  in  touch  with  that  Oxford 
atmosphere,  which,  I  maintain,  surrounded  the  birth  of 
the  full-blown  euphuism.  A  student  of  Christ  Church, 
he  took  his  B.A.  degree  in  1569'-',  and  so  probably  just 
escaped  being  a  contemporary  of  Lyly.  But,  as  he  was 
a  "dear  friend"  of  William  Gager,  who  was  a  considerably 
younger  man  than  himself,  it  seems  probable  that  he 
continued  his  Oxford  connexion  after  his  degree. 
1  Craik,  I.  p.  269.  '2  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.,  Pettie. 


40  JOHN    LYLY 

However  this  may  be,  he  published  his  Petite  Pallace  of 
Pettie  his  Pleasure,  which  so  exactly  anticipates  the  style 
of  Euphues,  in  1 576,  only  two  years  before  the  later  book. 
The  Petite  Pallace  was  an  imitation  of  the  famous 
Palace  of  Pleasure  published  in  1566  by  William 
Painter,  who,  though  he  had  known  Guevara's  writings, 
drew  his  material  almost  entirely  from  Italian  sources. 
That  Pettie  also  possessed  a  knowledge  of  Spanish 
literature,  as  we  should  expect  from  the  period  of  his 
residence  at  Oxford,  is  shown  by  his  translation  of 
Guazzo's  Civile  Conversation  in  1581,  to  which  he  affixes 
a  euphuistic  preface.  This  again  was  only  a  left-handed 
transcript  from  the  French.  Therefore  the  Spanish 
elements,  though  undoubtedly  present,  cannot  be  insisted 
upon.  We  may  concede  that  Pettie  had  read  North, 
or  even  go  so  far  as  to  assert  with  Mr  Underhill  that 
he  was  acquainted  with  "parts  of  the  Gallicized  Guevara," 
without  lending  countenance  to  Dr  Landmann's  radical 
theories.  No  one,  reading  the  Petite  Pleasure,  can  doubt 
that  Pettie  was  the  real  creator  of  euphuism  in  its  fullest 
development,  and  that  Lyly  was  only  an  imitator. 
Though  I  have  already  somewhat  overburdened  this 
chapter.  I  cannot  refrain  from  quoting  a  passage  from 
Pettie,  not  only  as  an  example  of  his  style,  but  also 
because  the  passage  is  in  itself  so  delightful,  that  it  is 
one's  duty  to  rescue  it  from  oblivion: 

"As  amongst  all  the  bonds  of  benevolence  and  good 
will,  there  is  none  more  honourable,  ancient,  or  honest 
than  marriage,  so  in  "my  fancy  there  is  none  that  doth 
more  firmly  fasten  and  inseparably  unite  us  together 
than  the  same  estate  doth,  or  wherein  the  fruits  of  true 
friendship  do  more  plenteously  appear:  in  the  father  is 
a  certain  severe  love  and  careful  goodwill  towards  the 
child,  the  child  beareth  a  fearful  affection  and  awful 


EUPHUISM  41 

obedience  towards  the  father:  the  master  hath  an 
imperious  regard  of  the  servant,  the  servant  a  servile 
care  of  the  master.  The  friendship  amongst  men  is 
grounded  upon  no  love  and  dissolved  upon  every  light 
occasion:  the  goodwill  of  kinsfolk  is  constantly  cold, 
as  much  of  custom  as  of  devotion:  but  in  this  stately 
estate  of  matrimony  there  is  nothing  fearful,  all  things 
are  done  faithfully  without  doubting,  truly  without 
doubling,  willingly  without  constraint,  joyfully  without 
complaint:  yea  there  is  such  a  general  consent  and 
mutual  agreement  between  the  man  and  wife,  that  they 
both  wish  and  will  covet  and  crave  one  thing.  And  as 
a  scion  grafted  in  a  strange  stalk,  their  natures  being 
united  by  growth,  they  become  one  and  together  bear 
one  fruit  r  so  the  love  of  the  wife  planted  in  the  breast 
of  her  husband,  their  hearts  by  continuance  -of  love 
become  one,  one  sense  and  one  soul  serveth  them  both. 
And  as  the  scion  severed  from  the  stock  withereth 
away,  if  it  be  not  grafted  in  some  other:  so  a  loving 
wife  separated  from  the  society  of  her  husband  withereth 
away  in  woe  and  leadeth  a  life  no  less  pleasant  than 
death1."  Lyly  never  wrote  anything  to  equal  this.  Indeed 
it  is  not  unworthy  of  the  lips  of  one  of  Shakespeare's 
heroines. 

The  euphuism  of  the  foregoing  quotation  will  be 
readily  detected.  The  sole  difference  between  the  styles 
of  Lyly  and  Pettie  is  that,  while  Pettie's  similes  from 
nature  are  simple  and  natural,  Lyly,  with  his  knowledge 
of  Pliny  and  of  the  bestiaries,  added  his  fabulous 
"unnatural  natural  history."  Pettie's  book  was  popular 
for  the  time,  three  editions  of  it  being  called  for  in  the 
first  year  of  its  publication,  but  it  was  soon  to  be  thrust 
aside  by  the  fame  of  the  much  more  pretentious,  and, 

1  I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  modernising  the  spelling. 


42  JOHN    LYLY 

apart  from  the  style,  better  constructed  Enphues  of  Lyly. 
In  truth,  as  Gabriel  Harvey  justly  but  unkindly  remarks, 
"Young  Euphues  but  hatched  the  eggs  his  elder  freendes 
laid."  But  the  parental  responsibility  and  merit  must 
be  attributed  to  him  who  hatches.  It  was  Lyly  who 
made  euphuism  famous  and  therefore  a  power;  and, 
despite  the  fact  that  he  marks  the  culmination  of  the 
movement,  he  is  the  most  dynamical  of  all  the  euphuists. 
It  remains  to  sum  up  our  conclusions  respecting  the 
origin  and  development  of  this  literary  phase.  Difficult 
as  it  is  to  unravel  the  tangled  network  of  obscure 
influences  which  surrounded  its  birth,  I  venture  to  think 
that  a  sufficiently  complete  disproof  of  that  extreme 
theory,  which  would  ascribe  it  entirely  to  Guevara's 
influence,  has  been  offered.  Guevara,  in  the  translation 
of  Berners,  undoubtedly  took  the  field  early,  but,  as  we 
have  seen,  Berners  was  probably  feeling  towards  the 
style  before  he  knew  Guevara ;  and  moreover  the  bishop's 
alto  estilo  must  have  suffered  considerably  while  passing 
through  the  French.  Even  allowing  everything,  as  we 
have  done,  for  the  close  connexion  between  Spain  and 
England,  for  the  Spanish  tradition  at  Oxford,  and  for  the 
interest  in  peninsular  writings  shown  by  Lyly's  immediate 
circle  of  friends,  we  cannot  accord  to  Dr  Landmann's 
explanation  anything  more  than  a  very  modified  accept- 
ance. Nor  would  a  complete  rejection  of  this  solution 
of  the  Lyly  problem  render  English  euphuism  inex- 
plicable ;  for  something  very  like  it  would  naturally 
have  resulted  from  the  close  application  of  classical 
methods  to  prose  writing  ;  and  in  the  case  of  Cheke  and 
Ascham  we  actually  see  the  process  at  work.  And  yet 
Lyly  owed  a  great  debt  to  Guevara.  A  true  solution, 
therefore,  must  find  a  place  for  foreign  as  well  as  native 
influences.  And  to  say  that  the  Spanish  intervention 


EUPHUISM  43 

confirmed  and  hastened  a  development  already  at  work, 
of  which  the  original  impulse  was  English,  is,  I  think,  to 
give  a  due  allowance  to  both. 

SECTION  III.     Lylys  Legatees  and  the  relation 
between  Euphuism  and  the  Renaissance. 

The  publication  of  Euphues  was  the  culmination, 
rather  than  the  origin,  of  that  literary  phase  to  which 
it  gave  its  name.  And  the  vogue  of  euphuism  after 
1579  was  short,  lasting  indeed  only  until  about  1590; 
yet  during  these  ten  years  its  influence  was  far-reaching, 
and  left  a  definite  mark  upon  later  English  prose.  It 
would  be  idle,  if  not  impossible,  to  trace  its  effects  upon 
every  individual  writer  who  fell  under  its  immediate 
fascination.  Moreover  the  task  has  already  been  per- 
formed in  a  great  measure  by  M.  Jusserand1  and 
Mr  Bond2.  They  have  shown  once  and  for  all  that 
Greene,  Lodge,  Welbanke,  Munday,  Warner,  Wilkinson, 
and  above  all  Shakespeare,  were  indebted  to  our  author 
for  certain  mannerisms  of  style.  I  shall  therefore  con- 
tent myself  with  noticing  two  or  three  writers,  tainted 
with  euphuism,  who  have  been  generally  overlooked,  and 
who  seem  to  me  important  enough,  either  in  themselves, 
or  as  throwing  light  upon  the  subject  of  the  essay,  to 
receive  attention. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  dramatist  Kyd,  who  com- 
pleted his  well-known  SpanisJi  Tragedy  between  1584 
and  1589,  that  is  at  the  height  of  the  euphuistic  fashion. 
This  play  was  apparently  an  inexhaustible  joke  to  the 
Elizabethans  ;  for  the  references  to  it  in  later  dramatists 
are  innumerable.  One  passage  must  have  been  particu- 
larly famous,  for  we  find  it  parodied  most  elaborately  by 

1  Jusserand,  ch.  iv.  2  Bond,  vol.  I.  pp.  164-175. 


44  JOHN    LYLY 

Field,  as  late  as  1606,  in  his  A  Woman  is  a  Weathercock1. 
The  passage  in  question,  which  was  obviously  inspired  by 
Lyly,  runs  as  follows  : 

"  Yet  might  she  love  me  for  my  valiance : 
I,  but  that's  slandered  by  captivity. 
Yet  might  she  love  me  to  content  her  sire : 
I,  but  her  reason  masters  her  desire. 
Yet  might  she  love  me  as  her  brother's  friend: 
I,  but  her  hopes  aim  at  some  other  end. 
Yet  might  she  love  me  to  uprear  her  state : 
I,  but  perhaps  she  loves  some  nobler  mate. 
Yet  might  she  love  me  as  her  beautie's  thrall: 
I,  but  I  feare  she  cannot  love  at  all." 

Nathaniel  Field's  parody  of  this  melodramatic  nonsense 
is  so  amusing  that  I  cannot  forbear  quoting  it.  This 
time  the  despairing  lover  is  Sir  Abraham  Ninny,  who 
quotes  Kyd  to  his  companions,  and  they  with  the  cry  of 
"  Ha  God-a-mercy,  old  Hieromino  !  "  begin  the  game  of 
parody,  which  must  have  been  keenly  enjoyed  by  the 
audience.  Field  improves  on  the  original  by  putting  the 
alternate  lines  of  despair  into  the  mouths  of  Ninny's 
jesting  friends.  It  runs,  therefore : 

"  — Yet  might  she  love  me  for  my  lovely  eyes. 
— Ay  but,  perhaps  your  nose  she  does  despise. 
— Yet  might  she  love  me  for  my  dimpled  chin. 
— Ay  but,  she  sees  your  beard  is  very  thin. 
— Yet  might  she  love  me  for  my  proper  body. 
— Ay  but,  she  thinks  you  are  an  arrant  noddy. 
— Yet  might  she  love  me  'cause  I  am  an  heir. 
— Ay  but,  perhaps  she  does  not  like  your  ware. 
— Yet  might  she  love  me  in  despite  of  all. 
(the  lady  herself) — Ay  but  indeed  I  cannot  love  at  all." 

This  parody,  apart  from  any  interest  it  possesses  for  the 
student  of  Lyly,  is  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  ways 
of  Elizabethan  playwrights,  and  of  the  thorough  know- 
ledge of  previous  plays  they  assumed  their  audience  to 

1  Act  i.  Sc.  it. 


EUPHUISM  45 

have  possessed.  There  are  several  other  examples  of 
Kyd's  acquaintance  with  the  Euphttes  in  the  Spanish 
Tragedy^,  in  the  other  dramas2,  and  in  his  prose  works3, 
which  it  is  not  necessary  to  quote.  But  there  is  one  more 
passage,  again  from  his  most  famous  play,  which  is  so 
full  of  interest  that  it  cannot  be  passed  over  in  silence. 
It  is  a  counsel  of  hope  to  the  despairing  lover,  and 
assumes  this  inspiring  form  : 

"My  Lord,  though  Belimperia  seem  thus  coy 
Let  reason  hold  you  in  your  wonted  joy; 
In  time  the  savage  Bull  sustains  the  yoke, 
In  time  all  Haggard  Hawkes  will  stoop  to  lure, 
In  time  small  wedges  cleave  the  hardest  Oake, 
In  time  the  flint  is  pearst  with  softest  shower, 
And  she  in  time  will  fall  from  her  disdain, 
And  rue  the  sufferance  of  your  deadly  paine4." 

Now  these  lines  are  practically  a  transcript  of  the  open- 
ing words  of  the  47th  sonnet  in  Watson's  Hekatompathia 
published  in  1582.  Remembering  Lyly's  penetrating 
observation  that  "  the  soft  droppes  of  rain  pearce  the 
hard  marble,  many  strokes  overthrow  the  tallest  oake5," 
and  bearing  in  mind  that  the  high  priest  of  euphuism 
himself  contributed  a  commendatory  epistle  to  the 
Hekatompathia^  we  should  expect  that  these  Bulls  and 
Hawkes  and  Oakes  were  choice  flowers  of  speech,  culled 
from  that  botanico-zoological  "  garden  of  prose  " — the 
Euphues.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  Watson  himself  in- 
forms us  in  a  note  that  his  sonnet  is  an  imitation  of  the 
Italian  Serafino,  from  whom  he  also  borrows  other 
sonnet-conceits  in  the  same  volume,  some  of  which  are 
full  of  similar  references  to  the  properties  of  animals  and 

1  Sp.  Trag.,  Act  iv.  190  (cp.  Euphues,  p.  146). 

2  Soliman  and  Perseda,  Act  in.  130  (cp.  Euphues,  p.  100),  and  Act 
II.  199. 

3  Kyd's  Works  (Boas),  p.  288,  and  ch.  ix. 

4  Sp.  Trag.  Act  n.  1-8.  s  Euphues,  p.  337. 


46  JOHN    LYLY 

plants.  The  conclusion  is  forced  upon  us  therefore  that 
Watson  and  Lyly  went  to  the  same  source,  or,  if  a  know- 
ledge of  Italian  cannot  be  granted  to  our  author,  that  he 
borrowed  from  Watson.  At  any  rate  Watson  cannot  be 
placed  amongst  the  imitators  of  Euphues.  Like  Pettie 
and  Gosson  he  must  share  with  Lyly  the  credit  of 
creation.  He  was  a  friend  of  Lyly's  at  Oxford  ;  they 
dedicated  their  books  to  the  same  patron,  and  they 
employed  the  same  publisher.  Moreover,  the  little  we 
have  of  Watson's  prose  is  highly  euphuistic,  and  it  is 
apparent  from  the  epistle  above  mentioned  that  he  was 
on  terms  of  closest  intimacy  with  the  author  of  Euphues. 
In  him  we  have  another  member  of  that  interesting  circle 
of  Oxford  euphuists,  who  continued  their  connexion  in 
London  under  de  Vere's  patronage. 

Watson  again  was  a  friend  of  the  well-known  poet 
Richard  Barnefield,  who  though  too  young  in  1578  to 
have  been  of  the  University  coterie  of  euphuists,  shows 
definite  traces  of  their  affectation  in  his  works.  The 
conventional  illustrations  from  an  "  unnatural  natural 
history"  abound  in  his  Affectionate  Shepherd^  (1594), 
and  he  repeats  the  jargon  about  marble  and  showers2 
which  we  have  seen  in  Lyly,  Watson  and  Kyd.  Again 
in  his  Cynthia  (1594)  there  is  a  distinct  reference  to  the 
opening  words  of  Euphues  in  the  lines, 

"Wit  without  wealth  is  bad,  yet  counted  good; 
Wealth  wanting  wisdom's  worse,  yet  deemed  as  well3." 

His  prose  introduction  betrays  the  same  influence. 

These  then  are  a  few  among  the  countless  scribblers 
of  those  prolific  times  who  fell  under  the  spell  of  the 
euphuistic  fashion.  They  are  mentioned,  either  because 
their  connexion  with  the  movement  has  been  over- 

1  Poems,  Arber,  pp.  iSand  19.  2  id.,  p.  24. 

3  id.,  p.  51. 


EUPHUISM  47 

looked,  or  because  they  throw  a  new  and  important 
light  upon  Lyly  himself.  Of  other  legatees  it  is  im- 
possible to  treat  here  ;  and  it  is  enough,  without  tracing 
it  in  any  detail,  to  indicate  "  the  slender  euphuistic 
thread  that  runs  in  iron  through  Marlowe,  in  silver 
through  Shakespeare,  in  bronze  through  Bacon,  in 
more  or  less  inferior  metal  through  every  writer  of 
that  age1." 

There  is  nothing  strange  in  this  infatuation,  if  we 
remember  that  euphuism  was  "  the  English  type  of  an 
all  but  universal  disease2,"  as  Symonds  puts  it.  Dr  Land- 
mann,  we  have  decided,  was  wrong  in  his  insistence 
upon  foreign  influence  ;  but  his  error  was  a  natural  one, 
and  points  to  a  fact  which  no  student  of  Renaissance 
literature  can  afford  to  neglect.  Matthew  Arnold  long 
ago  laid  down  the  clarifying  principle  that  <-  the  criti- 
cism which  alone  can  much  help  us  for  the  future,  is 
a  criticism  which  regards  Europe  as  being,  for  intellectual 
and  spiritual  purposes,  one  great  confederation,  bound 
to  a  joint  action  and  working  to  a  common  result3." 
And  the  truth  of  this  becomes  more  and  more  indis- 
putable, the  longer  we  study  European  history,  whether 
it  be  from  the  side  of  Politics,  of  Religion,  or  of  Art. 
Landmann  ascribes  euphuism  to  Spain,  Symonds  ascribes 
it  to  Italy,  and  an  equally  good  case  might  be  made  out 
in  favour  of  France.  There  is  truth  in  all  these  hypo- 
theses, but  each  misses  the  true  significance  of  the  matter, 
which  is  that  euphuism  must  have  come,  and  would  have 
come,  without  any  question  of  borrowing. 

The  date  1453  is  usually  taken  as  a  convenient 
starting  point  for  the  Renaissance,  though  the  movement 
was  already  at  work  in  Italy,  for  that  was  the  year  of 

1  Symonds,  p.  407.  2  id.,  p.  404. 

3  Essays  in  Criticism,  I.  p.  39. 


48  JOHN    LYLY 

Byzantium's  fall  and  of  the  diffusion  of  the  classics  over 
Europe.  But,  for  the  countries  outside  Italy,  I  think 
that  the  date  1493  is  almost  as  important.  Hitherto  the 
new  learning  had  been  in  a  great  measure  confined  to 
Italy,  but  with  the  invasion  of  Charles  VIII.,  which  com- 
mences a  long  period  of  French  and  Spanish  occupation 
of  Italian  soil,  the  Renaissance,  especially  on  its  artistic 
side,  began  to  find  its  way  into  the  neighbouring  states, 
and  through  them  into  England.  It  is  the  old  story,  so 
familiar  to  sociologists,  of  a  lower  civilization  falling 
under  the  spell  of  the  culture  exhibited  by  a  more 
advanced  subject  population,  of  a  conqueror  worshipping 
the  gods  of  the  conquered.  It  is  the  story  of  the  con- 
quest of  Greece  by  Rome,  of  the  conquest  of  Rome  by 
the  Germans.  But  the  interesting  point  to  notice  is  that, 
when  the  "  barbarian "  Frenchman  descended  from  the 
Alps  upon  the  fair  plains  of  Lombardy,  the  Italian 
Renaissance  was  already  showing  signs  of  decadence. 
It  was  in  the  age  of  the  Petrarchisti,  of  Aretino,  of  Doni, 
and  of  Marini  that  Europe  awoke  to  the  full  conscious- 
ness of  the  wonders  of  Italian  literature.  Thus  it  was 
that  those  beyond  the  Alps  drank  of  water  already 
tainted.  That  France,  Spain,  and  England  should  be 
attracted  by  the  affectations  of  Italy,  rather  than  by 
what  was  best  in  her  literature,  was  only  to  be  expected. 
"  It  was  easier  to  catch  the  trick  of  an  Aretino,  and 
a  Marini,  than  to  emulate  the  style  of  a  Tasso  or  a 
Castiglione  "  :  and  besides  they  were  themselves  invent- 
ing similar  extravagances  independently  of  Italy.  The 
purely  formal  ideal  of  Art  had  in  Spain  already  found 
expression  among  the  courtiers  of  Juan  II.  of  Castile. 
One  of  them,  Baena,  writes  as  follows  of  poetry  :  "  that 
it  cannot  be  learned  or  well  and  properly  known,  save  by 
the  man  of  very  deep  and  subtle  invention,  and  of  a  very 


EUPHUISM  49 

lofty  and  fine  discretion,  and  of  a  very  healthy  and  un- 
erring judgment,  and  such  a  one  must  have  seen  and 
heard  and  read  many  and  diverse  books  and  writings, 
and  know  all  languages  and  have  frequented  kings' 
Courts  and  associated  with  great  men  and  beheld  and 
taken  part  in  worldly  affairs  ;  and  finally  he  must  be  of 
gentle  birth,  courteous  and  sedate,  polished,  humorous, 
polite,  witty,  and  have  in  his  composition  honey,  and 
sugar,  and  salt,  and  a  good  presence  and  a  witty  manner 
of  reasoning  ;  moreover  he  must  be  also  a  lover  and  ever 
make  a  show  and  pretence  of  it 1."  Such  a  catalogue  of 
the  poet's  requisites  might  have  been  written  by  any 
one  of  our  Oxford  euphuists ;  and  Watson,  at  least, 
among  them  fulfilled  all  its  conditions. 

The  Italian  influence,  therefore,  did  but  hasten  a 
process  already  at  work.  The  reasons  for  this  universal 
movement  are  very  difficult  to  determine.  But  among 
many  suggestions  of  more  or  less  value,  a  few  causes  of 
the  change  may  here  be  hazarded.  In  the  first  place, 
then,  the  Renaissance  happened  to  be  contemporaneous 
with  the  death  of  feudalism.  The  ideal  of  chivalry  is 
dying  out  all  over  Europe  ;  and  the  romances  of  chivalry 
are  everywhere  despised.  The  horizontal  class  divisions 
become  obscured  by  the  newly  found  perpendicular 
divisions  of  nationality;  and  in  Italy  and  England  at 
least  the  old  feudal  nobility  have  almost  entirely  dis- 
appeared. A  new  centre  of  national  life  and  culture  is 
therefore  in  the  process  of  formation,  that  of  the  Court ; 
and  thanks  to  this,  the  ideal  of  chivalry  gives  place  to 
the  new  ideal  of  the  courtier  or  the  gentleman.  This 
ideal  found  literary  expression  in  the  moral  Court 
treatises,  which  were  so  universally  popular  during  the 
Renaissance,  and  of  which  Guevara,  Castiglione,  and 

1  Butler  Clarke,  Spanish  Literature,  p.  71. 
w.  4 


50  JOHN    LYLY 

Lyly  are  the  most  famous  instances.  The  ambition  of 
those  who  frequent  Courts  has  always  been  to  appear 
distinguished — distinguished  that  is  from  the  vulgar  and 
the  ordinary,  or,  as  we  should  now  say,  from  the  Philis- 
tine. In  the  Courts  of  the  Renaissance  period,  where 
learning  was  considered  so  admirable,  this  necessary 
-distinction  would  naturally  take  the  form  of  a  cultured, 
if  not  pedantic,  diction ;  and  for  this  it  was  natural  that 
men  should  go  to  the  classics,  and  more  especially  to 
classical  orators,  as  models  of  good  speech.  It  must 
not  be  imagined  that  this  process  was  a  conscious  one. 
In  many  countries  the  rhetorical  style  was  already 
formed  by  scholars  before  it  became  the  speech  of  the 
Court.  In  fact  the  beginnings  of  modern  prose  style  are 
to  be  found  in  humanism.  Ascham  with  his  hatred  of 
the  "  Italianated  gentleman,"  was  probably  quite  uncon- 
scious of  his  own  affinity  to  that  objectionable  type, 
when  imitating  the  style  of  his  favourite  Tully  in  the 
Schoolmaster.  The  classics  it  must  be  remembered 
were  not  discovered  by  the  humanists,  they  were  only 
rediscovered.  The  middle  ages  had  used  them,  as  they 
had  used  the  Old  Testament,  as  prophetic  books.  Vir- 
gil's mediaeval  reputation  for  example  rests  for  the  most 
part  upon  the  fourth  Eclogue.  The  humanists,  on  the 
other  hand,  looked  upon  the  classics  as  literature  and 
valued  them  for  their  style.  But  here  again  they  drank 
from  tainted  sources;  for,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
writers  such  as  Cicero  and  Terence,  the  classics  they 
knew  and  loved  best  were  the  product  of  the  silver  age 
of  Rome,  the  characteristics  of  which  are  beautifully 
described  by  the  author  of  Marius  the  Epicurean  in  his 
chapter  significantly  called  Euphuism.  Few  of  the  Re- 
naissance students  had  the  critical  acumen  of  Cheke, 
and  they  fell  therefore  an  easy  prey  to  the  stylism  of  the 


EUPHUISM  51 

later  Latin  writers,  with  its  antithesis  and  extravagance. 
But,  with  all  this,  men  could  not  quite  shake  off  the 
middle  ages.  There  is  much  of  the  Scholastic  in  Lyly, 
and  the  exuberance  of  ornament,  the  fantastic  similes 
from  natural  history,  and  the  moral  lessons  deduced 
from  them,  are  quite  mediaeval  in  feeling.  We  learnt 
the  lessons  of  the  classics  backward ;  and  it  was  not 
until  centuries  after,  that  men  realised  that  the  essence 
of  Hellenism  is  restraint  and  harmony. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  movement  generally,  but  it 
passed  through  many  phases,  such  as  arcadianism,  gon- 
gorism,  dubartism  ;  and  yet  of  all  these  phases  euphuism 
was,  I  think,  the  most  important :  certainly  if  we  confine 
our  attention  to  English  literature  this  must  be  admitted. 
But,  even  if  we  keep  our  eyes  upon  the  Continent  alone, 
euphuism  would  seem  to  be  more  significant  than  the 
movements  which  succeeded  it;  for  it  was  a  definite 
attempt,  seriously  undertaken,  to  force  modern  languages 
into  a  classical  mould,  while  the  other  and  later  affecta- 
tions were  merely  passing  extravagances,  possessing 
little  dynamical  importance.  In  this  way,  short-lived 
and  abortive  as  it  seemed,  euphuism  anticipated  the 
literature  of  the  ancien  regime. 

The  movement,  moreover,  was  only  one  aspect  of  the 
Renaissance;  it  was  the  under-current  which  in  the  i8th 
century  became  the  main  stream.  Paradoxical  as  it  may 
seem,  the  Renaissance  in  its  most  modern  aspect  was  a 
development  of  the  middle  ages,  and  not  of  the  classics. 
This  we  call  romanticism.  As  an  artistic  product  it  was 
developed  on  strictly  national  and  traditional  lines,  born 
of  the  fields  as  it  were,  free  as  a  bird  and  as  sweet,  giving 
birth  in  England  to  the  drama,  in  Italy  to  the  plastic 
arts.  It  is  essentially  opposed  to  the  classical  movement, 
for  it  represents  the  idea  as  distinct  from  the  form.  Lyly 

4—2 


52  JOHN    LYLY 

belongs  to  both  movements,  for,  while  he  is  the  prot- 
agonist of  the  romantic  drama,  in  his  Euphues  we  may 
discover  the  source  of  the  artificial  stream  which,  con- 
cealed for  a  while  beneath  the  wild  exuberance  of  the 
romantic  growth,  appears  later  in  the  i8th  century  em- 
bracing the  whole  current  of  English  literature.  Before, 
however,  proceeding  to  fix  the  position  of  euphuism  in 
the  development  of  English  prose,  let  us  sum  up  the 
results  we  have  obtained  from  our  examination  of  its 
relation  to  the  general  European  Renaissance.  Origi- 
nating in  that  study  of  classical  style  we  find  so  forcibly 
advocated  by  Ascham  in  his  Schoolmaster,  it  was  essen- 
tially a  product  of  humanism.  In  every  country  scholars 
were  interested  as  much  in  the  style  as  in  the  matter  of 
the  newly  discovered  classics.  This  was  due,  partly  to 
the  lateness  of  the  Latin  writers  chiefly  known  to  them, 
partly  to  the  mediaeval  preference  for  words  rather  than 
ideas,  and  partly  to  the  fact  that  the  times  were  not  yet 
ripe  for  an  appreciation  of  the  spirit  as  distinct  from  the 
letter  of  the  classics.  In  Italy,  in  France,  and  in  Spain, 
therefore,  we  may  find  parallels  to  euphuism  without 
supposing  any  international  borrowings.  Euphues,  in 
fact,  is  not  so  much  a  reflection  of,  as  a  Glasse  for 
Europe. 

SECTION  IV.     The  position  of  Euphuism  in  tJie  history 
of  English  prose. 

A  few  words  remain  to  be  said  about  this  literary 
curiosity,  by  way  of  assigning  a  place  to  it  in  the  history 
of  our  prose.  To  do  so  with  any  scientific  precision  is 
impossible,  but  there  are  many  points  of  no  small 
significance  in  this  connexion,  which  should  not  be 
passed  over. 


EUPHUISM  53 

English  prose  at  the  beginning  of  the  i6th  century, 
that  is  before  the  new  learning  had  become  a  power  in 
the  land,  though  it  had  not  yet  been  employed  for 
artistic  purposes,  was  already  an  important  part  of  our 
literature,  and  possessed  a  quality  which  no  national 
prose  had  exhibited  since  the  days  of  Greece,  the  quality 
of  popularity1.  This  popularity,  which  arose  from  the 
fact  that  French  and  Latin  had  for  so  long  been  the 
language  of  the  ruling  section  of  the  community,  is  still 
the  distinction  which  marks  off  our  prose  from  that  of 
other  nations.  In  Italy,  for  example,  the  language  of 
literature  is  practically  incomprehensible  to  the  dwellers 
on  the  soil.  But  what  English  prose  has  gained  in 
breadth  and  comprehension  by  representing  the  tongue 
of  the  people,  it  has  lost  in  subtlety.  French  prose, 
which  developed  from  the  speech  of  the  Court,  is  a 
delicate  instrument,  capable  of  expressing  the  finest 
shades  of  meaning,  while  the  styles  of  George  Meredith 
and  of  Henry  James  show  how  difficult  it  is  for  a  subtle 
intellect  to  move  freely  within  the  limitations  of  English 
prose.  Indeed, "  it  is  a  remarkable  fact,"  as  Sainte  Beuve 
noticed,  "  and  an  inversion  of  what  is  true  of  other  lan- 
guages that,  in  French,  prose  has  always  had  the  pre- 
cedence over  poetry."  Repeated  attempts,  however,  have 
been  made  to  capture  our  language,  and  to  transport  it 
into  aristocratic  atmospheres  ;  and  of  these  attempts  the 
first  is  associated  with  the  name  of  Lyly. 

We  have  seen  that  English  euphuism  was  at  first  a 
flower  of  unconscious  growth  sprung  from  the  soil  of 
humanism.  But  ultimately,  in  the  hands  of  Pettie, 
Gosson,  Lyly,  and  Watson,  it  became  the  instrument 
of  an  Oxford  coterie  deliberately  and  consciously  em- 
ployed for  the  purpose  of  altering  the  form  of  English 

1  Cf.  Earle,  pp.  422,  423. 


54  JOHN    LYLY 

prose.  These  men  did  not  despise  their  native  tongue ; 
they  used  the  purest  English,  carefully  avoiding  the 
favourite  "ink-horn  terms"  of  their  contemporaries: 
they  admired  it,  as  one  admires  a  wild  bird  of  the 
fields,  which  one  wishes  to  capture  in  order  to  make  it 
hop  and  sing  in  a  golden  cage.  The  humanists  were 
already  developing  a  learned  style  within  the  native 
language ;  Lyly  and  his  friends  utilized  this  learned 
style  for  the  creation  of  an  aristocratic  type.  Euphuism 
was  no  "  transient  phase  of  madness1,"  as  Mr  Earle  con- 
temptuously calls  it,  but  a  brave  attempt,  and  withal  a 
first  attempt,  to  assert  that  prose  writing  is  an  art  no  less 
than  the  writing  of  poetry ;  and  this  alone  should  give  it 
a  claim  upon  students  of  English  literature. 

The  first  point  we  must  notice,  therefore,  about 
English  euphuism  is  that  it  represents  a  tendency  to 
confine  literature  within  the  limits  of  the  Court — in 
accordance,  one  might  almost  say,  with  the  general 
centralization  of  politics  and  religion  under  the  Tudors 
— and  that,  as  a  necessary  result  of  this,  conscious  prose 
style  appears  for  the  first  time  in  our  language.  I  say 
English  euphuism,  because  that  is  our  chief  concern,  and 
because  though  euphuism  on  the  Continent  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  expression  in  literature  of  the  new  ideal 
of  the  courtier,  yet  it  was  by  no  means  so  great  an  inno- 
vation as  it  was  in  England,  inasmuch  as  the  Romance 
literatures  had  always  represented  the  aristocracy.  The 
form  which  this  style  assumed  was  dependent  upon  the 
circumstances  which  gave  it  birth,  and  upon  the  general 
conditions  of  the  age.  Owing  to  the  former  it  became 
erudite,  polished,  precise,  meet  indeed  for  the  "parleyings" 
of  courtiers  and  maids-in-waiting;  but  it  was  to  the  latter 
that  it  owed  its  essentials.  Hitherto  we  have  contented 

1  Earle,  p.  436. 


EUPHUISM  55 

ourselves  with  indicating  the  rhetorical  aspect  of  eu- 
phuism. We  have  seen  that  the  Latin  orators  and  the 
writers  of  our  English  homilies  exercised  a  considerable 
influence  over  the  new  stylists.  It  was  natural  that 
rhetoricians  should  attract  those  who  were  desirous  of 
writing  ornamental  and  artistic  prose,  and  one  feels  in- 
clined to  believe  that  it  was  not  entirely  for  spiritual 
reasons  that  Lyly  frequently  attended  Dr  Andrews' 
sermons1.  But  the  euphuistic  manner  has  a  wider 
significance  than  this,  for  it  marks  the  transition  from 
poetry  to  prose. 

"  The  age  of  Elizabeth  is  pre-eminently  an  age  of 
poetry,  of  which  prose  may  be  regarded  as  merely  the 
overflow-."  It  was  at  once  the  end  of  the  mediaeval, 
and  the  beginning  of  the  modern,  world,  and  conse- 
quently, it  displays  the  qualities  of  both.  But  the  future 
lay  with  the  small  men  rather  than  with  the  great. 
Shakespeare  and  Milton  were  no  innovators.  With  their 
names  the  epoch  of  primitive  literature,  which  finds  ex- 
pression in  the  drama  and  the  epic,  ends,  while  it  reaches 
its  highest  flights.  The  dawn  of  the  modern  epoch, 
the  age  of  prose  and  of  the  novel,  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
connected  with  the  names  of  Lyly,  Sidney,  and  Nash. 
Thus,  as  in  the  i8th  century  poetry  was  subservient,  and 
so  became  assimilated,  to  prose,  so  the  prose  of  the  i6th 
century  exhibited  many  of  the  characteristics  of  verse. 
And  of  this  general  literary  feature  euphuism  is  the 
most  conspicuous  example ;  for  in  its  employment  of 
alliteration  and  antithesis,  in  addition  to  the  excessive 
use  of  illustration  and  simile  which  characterizes  arca- 
dianism  and  its  successors,  the  style  of  Lyly  is  transi- 
tional in  structure  as  well  as  in  ornament.  Moreover 
the  alliteration,  which  is  peculiar  to  English  euphuism, 

1  Bond,  i.  p.  60.  2  Raleigh,  p.  45. 


56  JOHN    LYLY 

gives  it  a  musical  element  which  its  continental  parallels 
lacked.  The  dividing  line  between  alliteration  and 
rhyme,  and  between  antithesis  and  rhythm,  is  not  a 
broad  one1.  Indeed  Pettie  found  it  so  narrow  that  he 
occasionally  lapsed  into  metrical  rhythm.  And  so, 
though  we  cannot  say  that  euphuism  is  verse,  we  can 
say  that  it  partakes  of  the  nature  of  verse.  In  this 
endeavour  to  provide  an  adequate  structure  for  the 
support  of  the  mass  of  imagery  that  the  taste  of  the 
age  demanded,  it  showed  itself  superior  to  the  rival 
prose  fashions.  Euphues  is  a  model  of  form  beside  the 
tedious  prolixity  of  the  Arcadia,  or  the  chaotic  effusions 
of  Nash.  The  weariness,  which  the  modern  reader  feels 
for  the  romance  of  Lyly,  is  due  rather  to  the  excessive 
quantity  of  its  metaphor,  which  was  the  fault  of  the  age, 
than  to  its  pedantic  style. 

I  write  loosely  of  "  style,"  but  strictly  speaking  the 
euphuists  paid  especial  attention  to  diction.  And  here 
again  the  poetical  and  aristocratic  tendencies  of  euphuism 
show  themselves.  For  diction,  which  is  the  art  of 
selection,  the  selection  of  apt  words,  is  of  course  one  of 
the  first  essentials  of  poetic  art,  and  is  also  more  pro- 
minent in  the  prose  of  Court  literature  than  elsewhere. 
The  precision,  the  finesse,  the  subtlety,  of  French  prose 
has  only  been  attained  by  centuries  of  attention  to 
diction.  English  prose,  on  the  other  hand,  is  singularly 
lacking  in  this  quality ;  and  for  this  cause  it  would 
never  have  produced  a  Flaubert,  despite  its  splendid 
achievements  in  style.  Had  euphuism  been  more  suc- 
cessful, it  might  have  altered  the  whole  aspect  of  later 
English  prose,  by  giving  us  in  the  i6th  century  that 

1  This   touches   upon  the  famous  dispute   between  Dr   Schwan   and 
Dr  Goodlet  which  is  excellently  dealt  with  by  Mr  Child,  p.  77. 


EUPHUISM  57 

quality  of  diction  which  did  not  become  prominent  in 
our  prose  until  the  days  of  Pater  and  the  purists. 

And  yet,  though  it  failed  in  this  particular,  the  in- 
fluence of  the  general  qualities  of  its  style  upon  later 
prose  must  have  been  incalculable.  The  vogue  of 
euphuism  as  a  craze  was  brief;  but  Euphues  received 
fresh  publication  about  once  every  three  years  down  to 
1636,  and  long  after  its  social  popularity  had  become  a 
thing  of  the  past,  it  probably  attracted  the  careful  study 
of  those  who  wished  to  write  artistic  prose.  The  only 
model  of  prose  form  which  the  age  possessed  could 
scarcely  sink  into  oblivion,  or  become  out  of  date,  until 
its  principal  lessons  had  been  so  well  learnt  as  to  pass 
into  common-places.  The  exaggerations,  which  first 
gave  it  fame,  were  probably  discounted  by  the  more 
sincere  appreciation  of  later  critics,  to  whom  its  more 
sterling  qualities  would  appeal.  For  some  reason,  the 
musical  properties  of  euphuism  do  not  appear  to  have 
found  favour  among  those  critics,  and  this  was  probably 
a  loss  to  our  literature.  "  Alliteration,"  as  Professor 
Raleigh  remarks,  "  is  often  condemned  as  a  flaw  in 
rhymed  verse,  and  it  may  well  be  open  to  question 
whether  Lyly  did  not  give  it  its  true  position  in  attempt- 
ing to  invent  a  place  for  it  in  what  is  called  prose1." 
Possibly  its  failure  in  this  respect  was  due  to  the  growth 
of  that  intellectual  asceticism,  and  that  reaction  against 
the  domination  of  poetry,  which  are,  I  think,  intimately 
bound  up  with  the  fortunes  of  Puritanism.  The  begin- 
ning of  this  reaction  is  visible  as  early  as  1589  in  the 
words  of  Warner's  preface  to  Albion's  England,  which 
display  the  very  affectation  they  protest  against :  "  onely 
this  error  may  be  thought  hatching  in  our  English,  that 
to  runne  on  the  letter  we  often  runne  from  the  matter : 

1   Raleigh,  p.  47. 


58  JOHN    LYLY 

and  being  over  prodigall  in  similes  we  become  lesse 
profitable  in  sentences  and  more  prolixious  to  sense." 
But,  however  this  may  be,  it  was  the  formal  rather  than 
the  musical  qualities  which  gave  Euphues  its  dynamical 
importance  in  the  history  of  English  prose.  Subsequent 
writers  had  much  to  learn  from  a  book  in  which  the 
principle  of  design  is  for  the  first  time  visible.'  With 
euphuism,  antithesis  and  the  use  of  balanced  sentences 
came  to  stay.  We  may  see  them  in  the  style  of  Johnson 
and  Gibbon,  while  alliterative  antithesis  reappears  to-day 
in  the  shape  of  the  epigram.  Doubtless  Lyly  abused 
the  antithetical  device ;  but  his  successors  had  only  to 
discover  a  means  of  skilfully  concealing  the  structure, 
an  improvement  which  the  early  euphuists,  with  all  the 
enthusiasm  of  inventors,  could  not  have  appreciated. 

Moreover,  in  aiming  at  elegance  and  precision,  Lyly 
attained  a  lucidity  almost  unequalled  among  his  con- 
temporaries. His  attention  to  form  saved  him  from 
the  besetting  sin  of  Elizabethan  prose, — incoherence  by 
reason  of  an  overwhelming  display  of  ornament.  His 
very  illustrations  were  subject  to  the  restraint  which  his 
style  demanded,  being  sown,  to  use  his  own  metaphor, 
"here  and  there  lyke  Strawberries,  not  in  heapes,  lyke 
Hoppes1."  Arcadianism  came  as  a  reaction  against 
euphuism,  attempting  to  replace  its  artificiality  by 
simplicity.  But  how  infinitely  more  preferable  is  the 
novel  of  Lyly,  with  its  artificial  precision  and  lucidity, 
to  the  conscious  artlessness  of  Sidney's  Arcadia,  with 
its  interminable  sentences  and  confused  syntax.  As  a 
modern  euphuist  has  taught  us,  of  all  poses  the  natural 
pose  is  the  most  irritating.  In  accordance  with  his 
desire  for  precision,  Lyly  made  frequent  use  of  the  short 
sentence.  In  this  we  have  another  indication  of  his 

1  Euphues,  p.  220. 


EUPHUISM  59 

modernity:  for  the  short  sentence,  which  is  so  character- 
istic of  English  prose  style  to-day,  occurs  more  often  in 
his  work  than  in  the  writings  of  any  of  his  predecessors. 
And,  in  reference  to  the  same  question  of  lucidity,  we 
may  notice  that  he  was  the  first  writer  who  gave  special 
attention  to  the  separation  of  his  prose  into  paragraphs, — 
a  matter  apparently  trivial,  but  really  of  no  small 
importance.  Finally,  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the 
number  of  words  to  be  found  in  Euphnes  which  have 
since  become  obsolete  is  a  very  small  one — "at  most  but 
a  small  fraction  of  one  per  cent.1"  And  this  is  in  itself 
sufficient  to  indicate  the  influence  which  Lyly's  novel 
has  exerted  upon  English  prose.  As  he  reads  it,  no  one 
can  avoid  being  struck  by  the  modernity  of  its  language, 
an  impression  not  to  be  obtained  from  a  perusal  of  the 
plays.  The  explanation  is  simple  enough.  The  plays 
were  not  read  or  absorbed  by  their  author's  contem- 
poraries and  successors ;  Euphues  was.  In  the  domain 
of  style,  Euphues  was  dynamical;  the  plays  were  not. 
But  the  true  value  of  Lyly's  prose  lies  not  so  much 
in  what  it  achieved  as  in  what  it  attempted;  for  the 
qualities,  which  euphuism,  by  its  insistence  upon  design 
and  elegance,  really  aimed  at,  were  strength,  brilliancy, 
and  refinement.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  our 
literature,  men  are  found  to  write  prose  with  the  purpose 
of  fascinating  and  enticing  the  reader,  not  merely  by 
what  is  said,  but  also  by  the  manner  of  saying  it. 
"Lyly"  (and,  we  may  add,  his  associates),  writes  his  latest 
editor,  "grasped  the  fact  that  in  prose  no  less  than  in 
poetry,  the  reader  demanded  to  be  led  onward  by  a 
succession  of  half  imperceptible  shocks  of  pleasure  in 
the  beauty  and  vigour  of  diction,  or  in  the  ingenuity 
of  phrasing,  in  sentence  after  sentence — pleasure  in- 
1  Child,  p.  4i. 


60  JOHN   LYLY 

separable  from  that  caused  by  a  perception  of  the  nice 
adaptation  of  words  to  thought,  pleasure  quite  other  than 
that  derivable  from  the  acquisition  of  fresh  knowledge1." 
The  direct  influence  of  the  man  who  first  taught  us  this 
lesson,  who  showed  us  that  a  writer,  to  be  successful, 
should  seek  not  merely  to  express  himself,  but  also  to 
study  the  mind  of  his  reader,  must  have  been  something 
quite  beyond  computation.  And  that  his  direct  influence 
was  not  more  lasting  was  due,  in  the  first  place,  to  the 
fact  that  he  had  not  grasped  the  full  significance  of  this 
psychological  aspect  of  style,  if  we  may  so  call  it,  which 
he  and  his  friends  had  been  the  first  to  discover.  As 
with  most  first  attempts,  euphuism,  while  bestowing 
immense  benefits  upon  those  who  came  after,  was  itself 
a  failure.  The  euphuists  perceived  the  problem  of  style, 
but  successfully  attacked  only  one  half  of  it.  More 
acute  than  their  contemporaries,  they  realised  the 
principle  of  economy,  but,  as  with  one  who  makes  an 
entirely  new  mechanical  invention,  they  were  themselves 
unable  to  appreciate  what  their  discovery  would  lead  to. 
They  were  right  in  addressing  themselves  to  the  task 
of  attracting,  and  stimulating,  the  reader  by  means  of 
precision,  pointed  antithesis,  and  such  like  attempts 
to  induce  pleasurable  mental  sensations,  but  they  forgot 
that  anyone  must  eventually  grow  weary  under  the 
influence  of  continuous  excitation  without  variation. 
The  soft  drops  of  rain  pierce  the  hard  marble,  many 
strokes  overthrow  the  tallest  oak,  and  much  monotony 
will  tire  the  readiest  reader.  Or,  to  use  the  phraseology 
of  a  somewhat  more  recent  scientist,  they  "considered 
only  those  causes  of  force  in  language  which  depend 
upon  economy  of  the  mental  energies,"  they  paid  no 
attention  to  "those  which  depend  upon  the  economy 

1  Bond,  I.  p.  146. 


EUPHUISM  6l 

of  the  mental  sensibilities^"  This  is  one  explanation 
of  the  weariness  with  which  Euphues  fills  the  modern 
reader,  and  of  the  speed  with  which,  in  spite  of  its 
priceless  pioneer  work,  that  book  was  superseded  and 
forgotten  in  its  own  days.  It  is  our  duty  to  give  it  its 
full  meed  of  recognition,  but  we  can  understand  and 
forgive  the  ungratefulness  of  its  contemporaries. 

Another  cause  of  the  oblivion  which  so  soon  over- 
took the  famous  Elizabethan  novel,  has  already  been 
suggested.  Euphuism  was  too  antagonistic  to  the 
general  current  of  English  prose  to  be  successful.  Lyly 
and  his  Oxford  clique  were  attempting  a  revolution 
similar  to  that  undertaken,  at  the  same  period,  by  Ron- 
sard  and  his  Pleiad.  Lyly  failed  in  prose,  where  Ronsard 
succeeded  in  poetry,  because  he  endeavoured  to  go  back 
upon  tradition,  while  the  Frenchman  worked  strictly 
within  its  limits.  The  attempt  to  throw  Court  dress  over 
the  plain  homespun  of  our  English  prose  might  have 
been  attended  with  success,  had  our  literature  been 
younger  and  more  easily  led  astray.  As  it  was,  prose  in 
this  country,  when  euphuism  invaded  it,  could  already 
show  seven  centuries  of  development,  and,  moreover, 
development  along  the  broad  and  national  lines  of 
common  or  vulgar  speech.  Euphuism  was  after  all  only 
part  of  the  general  tendency  of  the  age  to  focus  every- 
thing that  was  good  in  politics,  religion,  and  art,  on  the 
person  and  immediate  surroundings  of  the  sovereign  ; 
and  the  history  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  saw  the 
last  issue  of  the  series  of  Euphues  reprints,  is  the  history 
of  the  collapse  of  this  centralization  all  along  the  line, 
ending  in  the  complete  vindication  of  the  democratic 
basis  of  English  life  and  literature. 

With   these   general    remarks    we    must    leave    the 

1  H.  Spencer,  Essays,  n.  Phil,  of  Style. 


62  JOHN   LYLY 

subject  of  euphuism.  No  history  of  its  origin  and  its  in- 
fluence can  be  completely  satisfactory :  such  questions 
must  of  necessity  receive  a  speculative  and  tentative 
solution,  for  it  is  impossible  to  give  them  an  exact 
answer  which  admits  of  no  dispute.  The  age  of  Lyly 
was  far  more  complex  than  ours,  with  all  our  artistic 
sects  and  schisms  ;  the  currents  of  literary  influence  were 
multitudinous  and  extremely  involved.  As  Symonds 
wrote,  "  The  romantic  art  of  the  modern  world  did  not 
spring  like  that  of  Greece  from  an  ungarnered  field  of 
flowers.  Troubled  by  reminiscences  from  the  past  and 
by  reciprocal  influences  from  one  another,  the  literatures 
of  modern  Europe  came  into  existence  with  composite 
dialects  and  obeyed  confused  canons  of  taste,  exhibited 
their  adolescent  vigour  with  affected  graces  and  showed 
themselves  senile  in  their  cradles."  In  the  field  of  lite- 
rature to-day  the  standards  are  more  numerous,  but 
more  distinctive,  than  those  of  the  Elizabethans.  Our 
ideals  are  classified  with  almost  scientific  exactness,  and 
we  wear  the  labels  proudly.  But  the  very  splendour  of 
the  Renaissance  was  due  to  the  fact  that  in  the  same 
group,  in  the  same  artist,  were  to  be  found  the  most 
diverse  ideals  and  the  most  opposite  methods.  They 
worshipped  they  knew  not  what,  we  know  what  we  wor- 
ship. Yet  this  difference  does  not  prevent  us  from 
seeing  curious  points  of  similarity  between  our  own  and 
those  times.  The  i6th,  like  the  ipth  century,  was  a 
period  of  revolt  from  the  past :  and  at  such  moments 
men  feel  a  supreme  contempt  for  the  common-place  in 
literature.  The  cry  of  art  for  art's  sake  is  raised,  and 
the  result  is  extravagance,  euphuism.  A  wave  of  intel- 
lectual dandyism  seems  to  sweep  over  the  face  of  litera- 
ture, aristocratic  in  its  aims  and  sympathies.  Then  are 
the  battle  lines  drawn  up,  and  the  spectators  watch,  with 


EUPHUISM  63 

admiration  or  contempt,  the  eternally  recurrent  strife 
between  David  and  the  Philistines;  and  whether  the 
young  hero  be  clad  in  the  knee-breeches  of  aestheticism, 
or  the  slashed  doublet  of  the  courtier;  whether  he  be 
armed  with  epigram  and  sunflower,  or  with  euphuism 
and  camomile ;  variation  of  costume  cannot  conceal  the 
identity  of  his  personality — the  personality  of  the  fop  of 
culture. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE   FIRST   ENGLISH    NOVEL. 

DESPITE  the  disproportionate  attention  given  to 
euphuism  by  so  many  of  Lyly's  critics,  Euphues  is  no 
less  important  as  a  novel  than  as  a  piece  of  prose.  We 
can,  however,  dismiss  this  second  branch  of  our  subject 
in  fewer  words,  because  the  problem  of  Euphues  is  much 
simpler  and  more  straightforward  than  the  problem  of 
euphuism.  It  can  scarcely  be  said  that  Lyly  has  yet 
been  thoroughly  appreciated  as  a  novelist ;  indeed,  the 
whole  subject  of  the  Elizabethan  novel  is  very  far  from 
having  received  a  satisfactory  treatment  at  present. 
This  is  not  surprising  when  we  consider  that  the  last 
word  remains  to  be  said  upon  the  Elizabethan  drama. 
The  birth  of  modern  literature  was  so  sudden,  its  life, 
even  in  the  cradle,  was  so  complex  that  it  baffles  criti- 
cism. Like  the  peal  of  an  organ  with  a  thousand  stops, 
the  English  Renaissance  seemed  to  break  the  stillness 
of  the  great  mediaeval  church,  shaking  its  beautiful 
sombre  walls  and  filling  it  from  floor  to  roof  with  wild, 
pagan  music.  Indeed,  the  more  we  study  those  50  or 
60  years  which  embrace  the  so-called  Elizabethan  period, 
the  more  are  we  struck  by  the  fact  that,  ever  since, 
we  have  been  simply  making  variations  upon  the  themes 
which  the  men  of  those  times  gave  us.  Modern  science, 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH    NOVEL  65 

modern  poetry,  modern  drama,  sat  like  pages  at  the  feet 
of  the  Great  Queen.  Among  these  the  novel  cut  but  an 
insignificant  figure,  although  it  was  the  novel  which  had 
perhaps  the  longest  future  before  it.  We  need  not 
wonder  therefore  that  our  first  English  novelist  has  been 
treated  by  many  with  neglect.  None  I  think  have  done 
more  to  make  amends  in  this  direction  than  Professor 
Raleigh  and  M.  Jusserand;  the  former  in  his  graceful, 
humorous,  and  penetrating  little  book,  The  English 
Novel;  and  the  latter  in  his  well-known  work  on  The 
English  Novel  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare,  which  gives 
one,  while  reading  it,  the  feeling  of  being  present  at  a 
fancy-dress  ball,  so  skilfully  does  he  detect  the  forms 
and  faces  of  present-day  fiction  behind  euphuistic  mask 
and  beneath  arcadian  costume.  To  these  two  books 
the  present  writer  owes  a  debt  which  all  must  feel  who 
have  stood  bewildered  upon  the  threshold  of  Elizabeth's 
Court  with  its  glittering  throng  of  genius  and  wit. 

Sudden,  however,  as  was  this  crop  of  warriors  wield- 
ing pen,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  dragon's  teeth 
had  first  been  sown  in  mediaeval  soil.  With  Lyly  the 
English  novel  came  into  being,  but  that  child  of  his 
genius  was  not  without  ancestry  or  relations.  And  so, 
before  discussing  the  character  and  fortunes  of  the  in- 
fant, let  us  devote  a  few  introductory  remarks  to  pedi- 
gree. Roughly  speaking,  the  prose  narrative  in  England, 
before  Euphues,  falls  into  three  divisions,  the  romance  of 
chivalry,  the  novella,  and  the  moral  Court  treatise, — and 
all  three  are  of  foreign  extraction,  that  is  to  say,  they 
are  represented  in  England  by  translations  only.  Chaucer 
indeed  is  a  mine  of  material  suitable  for  the  novel,  but 
the  father  of  English  literature  elected  to  write  in  verse, 
and  his  Canterbury  Tales  have  no  appreciable  influence 
upon  the  later  prose  story.  For  some  reason,  the  medi- 

w.  5 


66  JOHN    LYLY 

aeval  prose  narrative  seems  to  have  been  confined  to  the 
so-called  Celtic  races.  Certainly,  both  the  romance  of 
chivalry  and  the  novella  are  to  be  traced  back  to  French 
sources.  The  novella,  which,  at  our  period,  had  become 
thoroughly  naturalized  in  Italy,  under  the  auspices  of 
Boccaccio,  had  originally  sprung  from  the  fabliaux  of 
J3th  century  France.  Nor  was  the  fabliau  the  only 
article  of  French  production  which  found  a  new  and 
more  stimulative  home  across  the  Alps  ;  for  just  as  it  is 
possible  to  trace  the  German  Reformation  back,  through 
Huss,  to  its  birth  in  Wycliff' s  England,  so  French  critics 
have  delighted  to  point  out  that  the  Italian  Renaissance 
itself  was  but  an  expansion  of  an  earlier  Renaissance  in 
France,  which,  for  all  the  strength  and  maturity  it 
gained  under  its  new  conditions,  lost  much  of  that 
indescribable  flavour  of  direct  simplicity  and  gracious 
sweetness  which  breathes  from  the  pages  of  Aucassin 
and  Nicolette  and  its  companion  Amis  and  Amile. 
Under  Charles  VIII.  and  his  successors  this  Renaissance 
was  carried  home,  as  it  were,  to  die — so  subtle  is  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  intellectual  influences  between  country  and 
country.  In  England  the  novella,  of  which  Chaucer  had 
made  ample  use,  first  appeared  in  prose  dress  from  the 
printing-press  of  Caxton's  successor,  Wynkyn  de  Worde. 
The  Dutch  printer  had  also  published  Lord  Berners' 
translation  of  Huon  of  Bordeaux,  the  best  romance  of 
chivalry  belonging  to  the  Charlemagne  cycle.  But, 
before  the  dawn  of  the  i6th  century  Malory  had  already 
given  us  Morte  D' Arthur,  from  the  Arthurian  cycle, 
printed,  as  everyone  knows,  by  the  industrious  Caxton 
himself.  Thus,  if  we  neglect,  as  I  think  we  may,  trans- 
lations from  the  Gesta  Romanorum,  we  may  say  that  the 
prose  narrative  appeared  in  England  simultaneously 
with  the  printing-press,  a  fact  which  is  more  than  coin- 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH    NOVEL  6/ 

cidence  ;  since  the  multiplication  of  books,  which  Caxton 
began,  decreased  the  necessity  for  remembering  tales ; 
and  therefore  it  was  now  possible  to  dispense  with  the 
aid  of  verse  ;  in  fact  Caxton  deprived  the  minstrel  of  his 
occupation. 

Of  the  third  form  of  prose  narrative — the  moral 
Court  treatise — we  have  already  said  something.  It  had 
appeared  in  Italy  and  in  Spain,  and  our  connexion  with 
it  came  from  the  latter  country,  through  Berners'  trans- 
lation of  the  Golden  Boke  of  Guevara.  So  slight  was 
the  thread  of  narrative  running  through  this  book,  that 
one  would  imagine  at  first  sight  that  it  could  have  little 
to  do  with  the  history  of  our  novel.  And  yet  in  com- 
parison with  its  importance  in  this  respect  the  novella 
and  the  romance  of  chivalry  are  quite  insignificant. 
The  two  latter  never  indeed  lost  their  popularity  during 
the  Elizabethan  age,  but  they  had  ceased  to  be  con- 
sidered respectable — a  very  different  thing — before  that 
age  began.  The  first  cause  of  their  fall  in  the  social 
scale  was  the  disapprobation  of  the  humanists.  Ascham, 
echoing  Plato's  condemnation  of  Homer,  attacks  the 
romance  of  chivalry  from  the  moral  point  of  view,  at  the 
same  time  cunningly  associating  it  with  "  Papistrie." 
But  he  holds  the  novella  even  in  greater  abhorrence,  for, 
after  declaring  that  the  whole  pleasure  of  the  Morte 
D1  Arthur  "  standeth  in  two  speciall  poyntes,  in  open 
mans  slaughter,  and  bold  bawdrye,"  he  goes  on  to  say : 
"  and  yet  ten  Morte  Arthurs  do  not  a  tenth  part  so  much 
harm  as  one  of  those  bookes,  made  in  Italy  and  trans- 
lated in  England  V 

But  there  were  social  as  well  as  moral  reasons  for  the 
depreciation  of  Malory  and  Boccaccio.  The  taste  of  the 
age  began  to  find  these  foreign  dishes,  if  not  unpalatable, 
1  Schoolmaster,  p.  80. 

5—2 


68  JOHN    LYLY 

at  least  not  sufficiently  delicate.  England  was  fortunate 
in  receiving  the  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance  at  the 
same  time  ;  and  the  men  of  those  "  spacious  times  "  set 
before  their  eyes  that  ideal  of  the  courtier,  so  exquisitely 
embodied  by  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  in  which  godliness  was 
not  thought  incompatible  with  refinement  of  culture  and 
graciousness  of  bearing.  For  the  first  time  our  country 
became  civilized  in  the  full  meaning  of  that  word,  and 
the  knight,  shedding  the  armour  of  barbarism,  became 
the  gentleman,  clothed  in  velvet  and  silk.  The  romance 
of  chivalry,  therefore,  became  old-fashioned ;  and  it 
seemed  for  a  time  doomed  to  destruction  until  it  received 
a  new  lease  of  life,  purged  of  mediaevalism  and  modern- 
ised by  the  hands  of  Sidney  himself,  under  the  guise  of 
arcadianism.  While,  however,  Arcadia  remained  an  un- 
discovered country,  the  needs  of  the  age  were  supplied 
by  the  "  moral  Court  treatise."  It  was  perhaps  not  so 
much  that  the  old  stories  found  little  response  in  the 
new  form  of  society,  as  that  they  did  not  reflect  that 
society.  We  may  well  believe  that  the  taste  for  mirrors, 
which  now  became  so  fashionable,  found  its  psychological 
parallel  in  the  desire  of  the  Elizabethans  to  discover 
their  own  fashions,  their  own  affectations,  themselves, 
in  the  stories  they  read  ;  and  if  this  indeed  be  what  is 
meant  by  realism  in  literature  that  quality  in  the  novel 
dates  from  those  days.  In  this  sense  if  in  no  other,  in 
the  sense  that  he  held,  for  the  first  time,  a  polished 
mirror  before  contemporary  life  and  manners,  Lyly  must 
be  called  the  first  of  English  novelists. 

The  Anatomy  of  Wit,  which  it  is  most  important  to 
distinguish  from  its  sequel,  was  the  descendant  in  the 
direct  line  from  the  "  moral  Court  treatise."  Something 
perhaps  of  the  atmosphere  of  the  novella  clung  about  its 
pages,  but  that  was  only  to  be  expected :  Lyly  added 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH   NOVEL  69 

incident  to  the  bare  scheme  of  discourses,  and  for  that 
he  had  no  other  models  but  the  Italians.  But  Guevara 
was  his  real  source.  Dr  Landmann's  verdict,  that 
"  Euphuism  is  not  only  adapted  from  Guevara's  alto 
estilo,  but  Euphues  itself,  as  to  its  contents,  is  a  mere 
imitation  of  Guevara's  enlarged  biography  of  Marcus 
Aurelius,"  has  certainly  been  shown  by  Mr  Bond  to  be 
a  gross  overstatement ;  yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  Diall  of  Princes  was  Lyly's  model  on  the  side  of 
matter,  as  was  Pettie's  Pallace  on  the  side  of  style.  Our 
author's  debt  to  the  Spaniard  is  seen  in  a  correspondence 
between  many  parts  of  his  book  and  the  Aureo  Libro,  in 
certain  of  the  concluding  letters  and  discourses,  and  in 
many  other  ways  which  Mr  Bond  has  patiently  noted1. 
Guevara,  however,  was  but  one  among  many  previous 
writers  to  whom  Lyly  owed  obligations.  Etiphues  was 
justly  styled  by  its  author  "compiled,"  being  in  fact 
a  mosaic,  pieced  together  from  the  classics,  and  especially 
Plutarch,  Pliny,  and  Ovid,  and  from  previous  English 
writers  such  as  Harrison,  Heywood,  Fortescue,  and 
Gascoigne  ;  names  that  indicate  the  course  of  literary 
"browsing"  that  Lyly  substituted  for  the  ordinary 
curriculum  at  Oxford.  To  mention  all  the  authors  from 
whom  he  borrowed,  and  to  point  out  the  portions  of 
his  novel  which  are  due  to  their  several  influences, 
would  only  be  to  repeat  a  task  already  accomplished 
by  Mr  Bond'2. 

Allowing  for  all  its  author's  "  picking  and  stealing," 
The  Anatomy  of  Wit  was  in  the  highest  sense  an  original 
book  ;  for,  though  it  is  the  old  moral  treatise,  its  form  is 
new,  and  it  is  enlivened  by  a  thin  thread  of  narrative. 
The  hero  Euphues  is  a  young  man  lately  come  from 
Athens,  which  is  unmistakeably  Oxford,  to  Naples, 

1  Bond,  I.  pp.  154-156.  2  Bond,  I.  pp.  156-159. 


70  JOHN   LYLY 

which  is  just  as  unmistakeably  London.  Here  he  soon 
becomes  the  centre  of  a  convivial  circle,  where  he  is  wise 
enough  to  distinguish  between  friend  and  parasite,  to 
discern  the  difference  between  the  "  faith  of  Laelius 
and  the  flattery  of  Aristippus."  The  story  thus  opens 
bravely,  but  the  words  of  the  title-page,  "  most  necessary 
to  remember,"  are  ever  present  in  the  author's  mind, 
and  before  we  have  reached  the  fourth  page  the  sermon 
is  upon  us.  For  "  conscience "  attired  as  an  old  man, 
Eubulus,  now  enters  the  stage  of  this  Court  morality  and 
proceeds  to  deliver  a  long  harangue  upon  the  folly  of 
youth,  concluding  with  much  excellent  though  obvious 
counsel.  We  should  be  in  sympathy  with  the  rude 
answer  of  Euphues,  were  it  but  curt  at  the  same  time, 
but,  alas,  it  covers  six  pages.  Having  thus  imprudently 
crushed  the  "  wisdom  of  eld "  by  the  weight  of  his 
utterance,  our  hero  shows  his  natural  preference  for  the 
companionship  and  counsel  of  youth,  by  forming  an 
ardent  friendship  with  Philautus,  of  so  close  a  nature, 
that  "  they  used  not  only  one  boorde  but  one  bed,  one 
booke  (if  so  be  that  they  thought  it  not  one  too  many)." 
This  alliance,  however,  is  not  concluded  until  Euphues 
has  given  us  his  own  views,  together  with  those  of  half 
antiquity,  upon  the  subject  of  friendship,  or  before  he 
has  formally  professed  his  affection  in  a  pompous  ad- 
dress, beginning  "  Gentleman  and  friend,"  and  has  been 
as  formally  accepted.  By  Philautus  he  is  introduced  to 
Lucilla,  the  chief  female  character  of  the  book,  a  lady, 
if  we  are  to  believe  the  description  of  her  "  Lilly  cheeks 
dyed  with  a  Vermilion  red,"  of  startling  if  somewhat 
factitious  beauty.  To  say  that  the  plot  now  thickens 
would  be  to  use  too  coarse  a  word  ;  it  becomes  slightly 
tinged  with  incident,  inasmuch  as  Euphues  falls  in 
love  with  Lucilla,  the  destined  bride  of  Philautus.  She 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH   NOVEL  71 

reciprocates  his  passion,  and  the  double  fickleness  of 
mistress  and  friend  forms  an  excellent  opportunity, 
which  Lyly  does  not  fail  to  seize,  for  infinite  moralizings 
in  euphuistic  strains.  Philautus  is  naturally  indignant 
at  the  turn  affairs  have  taken,  and  the  former  friends 
exchange  letters  of  recrimination,  in  which,  however, 
their  embittered  feelings  are  concealed  beneath  a  vast 
display  of  classical  learning.  But  Nemesis,  swift  and 
sudden,  awaits  the  faithless  Euphues.  Lucilla,  it  turns 
out,  is  subject  to  a  mild  form  of  erotomania  and  is 
constitutionally  fickle,  so  that  before  her  new  lover  has 
begun  to  realise  his  bliss  she  has  already  contracted 
a  passion  for  some  other  young  gentleman.  Thus, 
struck  down  in  the  hour  of  his  pride  and  passion, 
Euphues  becomes  "  a  changed  man,"  and  bethinks  him- 
self of  his  soul,  which  he  has  so  long  neglected.  This  is 
the  turning-point  of  the  book,  the  turning  point  of  half 
the  English  novels  written  since  Lyly's  day.  The 
remainder  of  the  Anatomy  of  Wit  is  taken  up  with  what 
may  be  described  as  the  private  papers  of  Euphues, 
consisting  of  letters,  essays,  and  dialogues,  including 
A  Cooling  Carde  for  all  Fond  Lovers,  a  treatise  on 
education,  and  a  refutation  of  atheism,  and  so  amid  the 
thunders  of  the  artillery  of  platitude  the  first  part  of 
Euphues  closes. 

Professor  Raleigh's  explanation  of  this  tedious 
moralizing  is  that  Lyly,  wit  and  euphuist,  possessed 
the  Nonconformist  conscience  :  "  Beneath  the  courtier's 
slashed  doublet,  under  his  ornate  brocade  and  frills,  there 
stood  the  Puritan."  This  I  believe  to  be  a  mistaken 
view  of  the  case.  As  we  shall  later  see  reason  to  suppose, 
Lyly  never  became,  as  did  his  acquaintance  Gosson,  a 
very  seriously-minded  person.  Certainly  Euphues  does 
not  prove  that  Puritanism  was  latent  in  him.  The  moral 


72  JOHN    LYLY 

atmosphere  which  pervades  it  was  not  of  Lyly's  in- 
vention ;  he  inherited  it  from  his  predecessors  Guevara 
and  Castiglione,  and  he  employed  it  because  he  knew 
that  it  was  expected  of  him.  That  he  moralized  not  so 
much  from  conviction  as  from  convention  (to  use  a 
euphuism),  is,  I  think,  sufficiently  proved  by  the  fact 
that  in  the  second  part  of  his  novel,  where  he  is  address- 
ing a  new  public,  the  pulpit  strain  is  much  less  frequent, 
while  in  his  plays  it  entirely  disappears.  The  Anatomy 
of  Wit  is  essentially  the  work  of  an  inexperienced  writer, 
feeling  his  way  towards  a  public,  and  without  sufficient 
skill  or  courage  to  dispense  with  the  conventions  which 
he  has  inherited  from  previous  writers.  One  feels,  while 
reading  the  book,  that  Lyly  was  himself  conscious  that 
his  hero  was  an  insufferable  coxcomb,  and  that  he  only 
created  him  because  he  wished  to  comply  with  the 
public  taste.  It  may  be,  as  M.  Jusserand  asserts,  that 
Lyly  anticipated  Richardson,  but,  if  the  light-hearted 
Oxford  madcap  had  any  qualities  in  common  with  the 
sedate  bookseller,  artistic  sincerity  was  not  one  of  them. 
What  has  just  been  said  is  not  entirely  applicable  to 
the  treatise  on  education  which  passed  under  the  title  of 
Euphnes  and  his  Ephoebus.  Although  simply  an  adapta- 
tion of  the  De  Educatione  of  Plutarch,  it  was  not  entirely 
devoid  of  originality.  Here  we  find  the  famous  attack 
upon  Oxford,  which  was,  we  fear,  prompted  by  a  desire 
to  spite  the  University  authorities  rather  than  by  any 
earnest  feeling  of  moral  condemnation.  But  in  addition 
to  this  there  are  contributions  of  Lyly's  own  invention 
to  the  theory  of  teaching  which  are  not  without  merit. 
He  was,  as  we  have  seen,  interested  in  education.  It 
seems,  even  possible  that  he  had  actually  practised  as 
a  master  before  the  Euphues  saw  light1;  and,  therefore, 

1  Bond,  I.  p.  10. 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH   NOVEL  73 

we  have  every  reason  to  suppose  that  this  little  treatise 
was  a  labour  of  love.  Possibly  Ascham's  Schoolmaster 
inspired  him  with  the  idea  of  writing  it.  Certainly,  when 
we  have  allowed  everything  for  Plutarch's  work,  enough 
remains  over  to  justify  Mr  Quick's  inclusion  of  John 
Lyly,  side  by  side  with  Roger  Ascham,  in  his  Educational 
Reformers. 

But  such  excellent  work  has  but  little  to  do  with  the 
business  of  novel-writing,  and,  when  we  turn  to  this 
aspect  of  the  Anatomy  of  Wit,  there  is  little  to  be  said 
for  it  from  the  aesthetic  point  of  view.  Indeed,  it  cannot 
strictly  be  called  a  novel  at  all.  It  is  the  bridge  between 
the  moral  Court  treatise  and  the  novel,  and,  as  such,  all 
its  aesthetic  defects  matter  little  in  comparison  with  its 
dynamical  value.  It  was  a  great  step  to  hang  the  chest- 
nuts of  discourse  upon  a  string  of  incident.  The  story 
is  feeble,  the  plot  puerile,  but  it  was  something  to  have 
a  story  and  a  plot  which  dealt  with  contemporary  life. 
And  lastly,  though  characterization  is  not  even  attempted, 
yet  now  and  again  these  euphuistic  puppets,  distinguish- 
able only  by  their  labels,  are  inspired  with  something 
that  is  almost  life  by  a  phrase  or  a  chance  word. 

I  have  said  that  it  is  very  important  to  distinguish 
between  the  two  parts  of  Euphues.  Two  years  only 
elapsed  between  their  respective  publications,  but  in 
these  two  years  Lyly,  and  with  him  our  novel,  had 
made  great  strides.  In  1578  he  was  not  yet  a  novelist, 
though  the  conception  of  the  novel  and  the  capacity  for 
its  creation  were,  as  we  have  just  shown,  already  forming 
in  his  brain.  In  1580,  however,  the  English  novel  had 
ceased  to  be  merely  potential ;  for  it  had  come  into  being 
with  the  appearance  of  Euphues  and  his  England.  Here 
in  the  same  writer,  in  the  same  book,  and  within  the 
space  of  two  years,  we  may  observe  one  of  the  most 


74  JOHN    LYLY 

momentous  changes  of  modern  literature  in  actual  pro- 
cess. The  Anatomy  of  Wit  is  still  the  moral  Court 
treatise,  coloured  by  the  influence  of  the  Italian  novella; 
Eiiphues  and  his  England  is  the  first  English  novel. 
Lyly  unconsciously  symbolizes  the  change  he  initiated 
by  laying  the  scene  of  his  first  part  in  Italy,  while  in 
the  second  he  brings  his  hero  to  England.  That  sea 
voyage,  which  provoked  the  stomach  of  Philautus  sore, 
was  an  important  one  for  us,  since  the  freight  of  the 
vessel  was  nothing  less  than  our  English  novel. 

The  difference  between  the  two  parts  is  remarkable 
in  more  ways  than  one,  and  in  none  more  so  than  in  the 
change  of  dedication.  The  Anatomy  of  Wit,  as  was 
only  fitting  in  a  moral  Court  treatise,  was  inscribed  to 
the  gentleman  readers;  Euphues  and  his  England,  on  the 
other  hand,  made  an  appeal  to  a  very  different  class  of 
readers,  and  a  class  which  had  hitherto  been  neglected 
by  authors — "  the  ladies  and  gentlewomen  of  England." 
With  the  instinct,  almost,  of  a  religious  reformer,  Lyly 
saw  that  to  succeed  he  must  enlist  the  ladies  on  his  side. 
And  the  experiment  was  so  successful  that  I  am  inclined 
to  attribute  the  pre-eminence  of  Lyly  among  other 
euphuists  to  this  fact  alone.  "  Hatch  the  egges  his 
friendes  had  laid "  he  certainly  did.  but  he  fed  the 
chicks  upon  a  patent  food  of  his  own  invention. 
Mr  Bond  suggests  that  the  general  attention  which  the 
A  natomy  secured  by  its  attacks  upon  women  gave  Lyly 
the  idea  for  the  second  part.  But,  though  this  was  pro- 
bably the  immediate  cause  of  his  change  of  front,  some- 
thing like  Euphues  and  his  England  must  have  come 
sooner  or  later,  because  all  the  conditions  were  ripe  for 
its  production.  Side  by  side  with  the  ideal  of  the 
courtier  had  arisen  the  ideal  of  the  cultured  lady. 
Ascham,  visiting  Lady  Jane  Grey,  "founde  her  in  her 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH   NOVEL  75 

chamber  reading  Phaedon  Platonis  in  Greeke  and  that 
with  as  much  delite,  as  some  gentlemen  would  read  a 
merie  tale  in  Bocase1";  and,  when  a  Queen  came  to  the 
throne  who  could  talk  Greek  at  Cambridge,  the  fashion 
of  learning  for  ladies  must  have  received  an  immense 
impetus.  With  a  "blue  stocking"  showing  on  the  royal 
footstool,  all  the  ladies  of  the  Court  would  at  least  lay 
claim  to  a  certain  amount  of  learning.  Dr  Landmann 
has  attributed  the  vogue  of  euphuism,  at  least  in  part,  to 
feminine  influences,  but  in  so  far  as  England  shared  that 
affectation  with  the  other  Courts  of  Europe,  where  the 
fair  sex  had  not  yet  acquired  such  freedom  as  in  England, 
we  must  not  press  the  point  too  much  in  this  direction. 
The  importance  in  English  literature  of  that  "  monstrous 
regiment  of  women,"  against  which  John  Knox  blew  his 
rude  trumpet  so  shamelessly,  is  seen  not  so  much  in  the 
style  of  EupJmes  as  in  its  contents;  indeed,  in  the  second 
part  of  that  work  euphuism  is  much  less  prominent  than 
in  the  first.  The  romance  of  chivalry  and  the  Italian 
tale  would  be  still  more  distasteful  to  the  new  woman 
than  they  were  to  the  new  courtier.  Doubtless  Boccaccio 
may  have  found  a  place  in  many  a  lady's  secret  book- 
shelf as  Zola  and  Guy  de  Maupassant  do  perchance  to- 
day, but  he  was  scarcely  suitable  for  the  boudoir  table 
or  for  polite  literary  discussion.  Something  was  needed 
which  would  appeal  at  once  to  the  feminine  taste  for 
learning  and  to  the  desire  for  delicacy  and  refinement. 
This  want  was  only  partially  supplied  by  the  moral 
Court  treatise,  which  was  ostensibly  written  for  the 
courtier  and  not  the  maid-in-waiting.  What  was  re- 
quired was  a  book  expressly  provided  for  the  eye  of 
ladies — such  a  book,  in  fact,  as  Euplmes  and  his  England. 
Lyly's  discovery  of  this  new  literary  public  and  its 

1  Schoolmaster,  p.  47. 


76  JOHN    LYLY 

requirements  was  of  great  importance,  for  have  not  the 
ladies  ever  since  his  day  been  the  patrons  and  purchasers 
of  the  novel  ?  What  would  happen  to  the  literary  market 
to-day  were  our  mothers,  wives,  and  sisters  to  deny  them- 
selves the  pleasure  of  fiction  ?  The  very  question  would 
send  the  blood  from  Mr  Mudie's  lips.  The  two  thousand 
and  odd  novels  which  are  published  annually  in  this 
country  show  the  existence  of  a  large  leisured  class  in 
our  community,  and  this  class  is  undoubtedly  the  femi- 
nine one.  The  novel,  therefore,  owes  not  only  its  birth, 
but  its  continued  existence  down  to  our  own  day,  to  the 
"ladies  and  gentlewomen  of  England";  and  this  dedi- 
cation may  be  taken  as  a  general  one  for  all  novels 
since  Lyly's  time.  "Euphues,"  he  writes,  "  had  rather  lye 
shut  in  a  Ladye's  casket  than  open  in  a  scholar's  studie," 
and  he  continues,  "  after  dinner  you  may  overlooke  him 
to  keepe  you  from  sleepe,  or  if  you  be  heavie,  to  bring 
you  to  sleepe.. .it  were  better  to  hold  Euphues  in  your 
hands  though  you  let  him  fall,  when  you  be  willing  to 
winke,  then  to  sowe  in  a  clout,  and  pricke  your  fingers 
when  you  begin  to  nod1."  "With  Euphues"  remarks 
M.  Jusserand,  "  commences  in  England  the  literature  of 
the  drawing-room2";  and  the  literature  of  the  drawing- 
room  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  novel. 

All  the  faults  of  its  predecessor  are  present  in  Euphues 
and  his  England,  but  they  are  not  so  conspicuous.  The 
euphuistic  garb  and  the  mantle  of  the  prophet  Guevara 
sit  more  lightly  upon  our  author.  In  every  way  his 
movements  are  freer  and  bolder;  having  gained  con- 
fidence by  his  first  success,  he  now  dares  to  be  original. 
The  story  becomes  at  times  quite  interesting,  even  for 
a  modern  reader.  At  its  opening  Euphues  and  Philautus, 
who  have  come  to  terms  on  a  basis  of  common  con- 

1  Euphues,  p.  220.  2  Jusserand,  p.  5. 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH    NOVEL  77 

demnation  of  Lucilla,  are  discovered  on  their  way  to 
England.  By  way  of  enlivening  the  weary  hours,  our 
hero,  ever  ready  to  play  the  preacher  now  that  he  has 
ceased  to  be  the  warning,  delivers  himself  of  a  lengthy, 
but  highly  edifying  tale,  which  evokes  the  impatient 
exclamation  of  Philautus  already  quoted  ;  we  may  how- 
ever notice  as  a  sign  of  progress  that  Euphues  has 
substituted  a  moral  narrative  for  his  usual  discourse. 
The  relations  between  the  two  friends  have  become 
distinctly  amusing,  and  might,  in  abler  hands,  have 
resulted  in  comic  situation.  Euphues,  having  learnt  the 
lesson  of  the  burnt  child,  is  now  a  very  grave  person, 
proud  of  his  own  experience  and  of  its  fruits  in  himself. 
Extremes  met, 

"  Where  pinched  ascetic  and  red  sensualist 
Alternately  recurrent  freeze  and  burn," 

and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  Euphues  embodies 
many  of  the  characteristics  of  the  Byronic  hero — his 
sententiousness,  his  misogyny,  his  cynicism  born  of  dis- 
illusionment, and  his  rhetorical  flatulency;  but  he  is  no 
rebel  like  Manfred  because  he  finds  consolation  in  his 
own  pre-eminence  in  a  world  of  platitude.  Conscious 
of  his  dearly  bought  wisdom,  he  makes  it  his  continuous 
duty,  if  not  pleasure,  to  rebuke  the  over-amorous 
Philautus,  who  was  at  least  human,  and  to  enlarge  upon 
the  infidelity  of  the  opposite  sex.  Lyly  failed  to  realise 
the  possibilities  of  this  antagonism  of  character,  because 
he  always  appears  to  be  in  sympathy  with  his  hero,  and 
so  misses  an  opportunity  which  would  have  delighted 
the  heart  of  Thackeray.  I  say  "  appears,"  because  I 
consider  that  this  sympathy  was  nothing  but  a  pose 
which  he  considered  necessary  for  the  popularity  of  his 
book.  It  is  important  however  to  observe  that  the  idea 
of  one  character  as  a  foil  to  another,  though  unde- 


78  JOHN    LYLY 

veloped,  is  here  present  for  the  first  time  in  our  national 
prose  story. 

The  tale  ended  and  the  voyage  over,  our  friends 
arrive  in  England,  where  after  stopping  at  Dover  "  3  or 
4  days,  until  they  had  digested  ye  seas,  and  recovered 
their  healths,"  they  proceeded  to  Canterbury,  at  which 
place  they  fell  in  with  an  old  man  named  Fidus,  who 
gave  them  entertainment  for  body  and  mind.  To  those 
who  have  conscientiously  read  the  whole  history  of 
Euphues  up  to  this  point,  the  incident  of  Fidus  will 
appear  immensely  refreshing.  It  seems  to  me,  in  fact, 
to  mark  the  highest  point  of  Lyly's  skill  as  a  novelist, 
doubtless  because  he  is  here  drawing  upon  his  memory1 
and  not  his  imagination.  The  old  gentleman,  very 
different  from  his  prototype  Eubulus,  moves  quite 
humanly  among  his  bees  and  flowers,  and  tells  the 
graceful  story  of  his  love  with  a  charm  that  is  almost 
natural.  And,  although  he  checks  the  action  of  the 
story  for  thirty-three  pages,  we  are  sorry  to  take  leave 
of  this  "fatherlye  and  friendlye  sire";  for  he  lays  for 
a  time  the  ghost  of  homily,  which  reappears  directly 
his  guests  begin  to  "  forme  their  steppes  towards 
London."  Having  reached  the  Court,  in  due  time 
Philautus,  in  accordance  with  the  prophecies  of  Euphues 
though  much  to  his  disgust,  falls  in  love.  The  lady  of 
his  choice,  however,  has  unfortunately  given  her  heart 
to  another,  by  name  Surius.  The  despondent  lover, 
after  applying  in  vain  to  an  Italian  magician  for  a  love- 
philtre,  at  length  determines  to  adopt  the  bolder  line  of 
writing  to  his  scornful  lady.  The  letter  is  conveyed  in 
a  pomegranate,  and  the  incident  of  its  presentation  is 
prettily  conceived  and  displays  a  certain  amount  of 
dramatic  power.  The  upshot  is  that  Philautus  eventually 

1  Mr  Bond  thinks  it  a  picture  of  Lyly's  father. 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH    NOVEL  79 

finds  a  maiden  who  is  unattached  and  who  is  ready  to 
return  love  for  love.  Her  he  marries,  and  remains 
behind  with  "his  Violet"  in  England,  while  Euphues, 
less  happy  than  self-satisfied,  returns  to  Athens.  The 
interest  of  the  latter  half  of  the  book  centres  round  the 
house  of  Lady  Flavia,  where  the  principal  characters 
of  both  sexes  meet  together  and  discuss  the  philosophy 
of  love  and  the  psychology  of  ladies.  Such  intellectual 
gatherings  were  a  recognised  institution  at  Florence  at 
this  time,  being  an  imitation  of  Plato's  symposium,  and 
Lyly  had  already  attempted,  not  so  successfully  as  here, 
to  describe  one  in  the  house  of  Lucilla  of  the  Anatomy 
of  Wit. 

In  every  way  Euphues  and  his  England  is  an  im- 
provement upon  its  predecessor.  The  story  and  plot 
are  still  weak,  but  the  situations  are  often  well  thought 
out  and  treated  with  dramatic  effect.  The  action  indeed 
is  slow,  but  it  moves;  and  in  the  story  of  Fidus  it 
moves  comparatively  quickly.  Such  motion  of  course 
can  scarcely  ruffle  the  mental  waters  of  those  accus- 
tomed to  the  breathless  whirlwinds  which  form  the 
heart  of  George  Meredith's  novels;  but  these  whirlwinds 
are  as  directly  traceable  to  the  gentle  but  fitful  agitation 
of  Euphues,  as  was  the  storm  that  overtook  Ahab's 
chariot  to  the  little  cloud  undiscerned  by  the  prophet's 
eye.  The  figures,  again,  that  move  in  Lyly's  second 
novel  are  no  longer  clothes  filled  with  moral  sawdust. 
The  character  of  Philautus  is  especially  well  drawn, 
though  at  times  blurred  and  indistinct.  Lyly  had  not 
yet  passed  the  stage  of  creating  types,  that  is  of  por- 
traying one  aspect  and  an  obvious  one  of  such  a 
complex  thing  as  human  nature.  But  a  criticism  which 
would  be  applicable  to  Dickens  is  no  condemnation  of 
an  Elizabethan  pioneer.  It  was  much  to  have  attempted 


80  JOHN    LYLY 

characterization,  and  in  the  case  of  Philautus,  Iffida, 
Camilla,  and  perhaps  "the  Violet"  the  attempt  was 
nearly  if  not  quite  successful.  It  is  noticeable  that  for 
one  who  was  afterwards  to  become  a  writer  of  comedy, 
Lyly  shows  a  remarkable  absence  of  humour  in  these 
novels.  Now  and  again  we  seem  trembling  on  the 
brink  of  humour,  when  the  young  wiseacre  is  brought 
into  contact  with  his  weak-hearted  friend,  but  the  line 
is  seldom  actually  crossed.  Wit,  as  Lyly  here  under- 
stood it,  had  nothing  of  the  risible  in  it;  for  it  meant 
to  him  little  more  than  a  graceful  handling  of  obvious 
themes. 

But  the  importance  of  EtipJmes  was  in  its  influence, 
not  in  its  actual  achievement.  And  here  again  we  must 
reassert  the  significance  of  Lyly's  appeal  to  women. 
"That  noble  faculty,"  as  Macaulay  expresses  it,  "whereby 
man  is  able  to  live  in  the  past  and  in  the  future  in  the 
distant  and  in  the  unreal,"  is  rarely  found  in  the  opposite 
sex.  They  delight  in  novelty,  their  minds  are  of  a  practi- 
cal cast,  and  their  interests  almost  invariably  lie  in  the 
present.  The  names  of  Jane  Austen,  George  Eliot,  and 
Mrs  Humphry  Ward  are  sufficient  to  show  how  entirely 
successful  a  woman  may  be  in  delineating  the  life  around 
her.  If  there  is  any  truth  in  this  generalization,  it  was 
no  mere  coincidence  that  the  first  English  romance 
dealing  with  contemporary  life  was  written  expressly  for 
the  ladies  of  Elizabeth's  Court.  The  alteration  in  the 
face  of  social  life,  brought  about  by  the  recognition  of 
the  feminine  claim  and  hastened  no  doubt  by  the  fact 
that  England,  Scotland,  and  France  were  at  this  period 
under  the  rule  of  three  ladies  of  strong  character,  was 
inevitably  attended  with  great  changes  in  literature. 
This  change  is  first  expressed  by  Lyly  in  his  second 
novel  and  later  in  his  dramas.  The  mediaeval  conception 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH    NOVEL  8 1 

of  women,  a  masculine  conception,  now  underwent 
feminine  correction  ;  and  what  is  perhaps  of  more  im- 
portance still,  the  conception  of  man  undergoes  trans- 
formation also.  The  result  is  that  the  centre  of  gravity 
of  the  story  is  now  shifted.  Of  old  it  had  treated  of 
deeds  and  glorious  prowess  for  the  sake  of  honour,  or 
more  often  for  the  sake  of  some  anaemic  damsel ;  now 
it  deals  with  the  passion  itself  and  not  its  knightly 
manifestations, — with  the  very  feelings  and  hearts  of  the 
lovers.  In  other  words  under  the  auspices  of  Elizabeth 
and  her  maids  of  honour,  the  English  story  becomes 
subjective,  feminine,  its  scene  is  shifted  from  the  battle- 
field and  the  lists  to  the  lady's  boudoir ;  it  becomes  a 
novel.  "We  change  lance  and  war-horse,  for  walking- 
sword  and  pumps  and  silk  stockings.  We  forget  the 
filletted  brows  and  wind-blown  hair,  the  zone,  the  flowing 
robe,  the  sandalled  or  buskined  feet,  and  feel  the  dawn- 
ing empire  of  the  fan,  the  glove,  the  high-heeled  shoe, 
the  bonnet,  the  petticoat,  and  the  parasol1":  in  fact  we 
enter  into  the  modern  world.  At  the  first  expression  of 
this  change  in  literature  Euphues  and  his  England  is  of 
the  very  greatest  interest.  Characters  in  fiction  now  for 
the  first  time  move  before  a  background  of  everyday 
life  and  discuss  matters  of  everyday  importance.  And, 
as  if  Lyly  wished  to  leave  no  doubt  as  to  his  aims  and 
methods,  he  gives  at  the  conclusion  of  his  book  that  in- 
teresting description  of  Elizabethan  England  entitled 
A  glass e  for  Europe. 

It  is  however  in  Lyly's  treatment  of  the  subject  of 
love  that  the  change  is  most  conspicuous.  The  subtleties 
of  passion  are  now  realised  for  the  first  time.  We  are 
shown  the  private  emotions,  the  secret  alternations  of 

1  Bond,  I.  p.  161. 


82  JOHN    LYLY 

hope  and  despair  which  agitate  the  breasts  of  man  and 
maid,  and,  more  important  still,  we  find  these  emotions 
at  work  under  the  restraint  of  social  conditions  ;  the 
violent  torrent  of  passion  checked  and  confined  by  the 
demands  of  etiquette  and  the  conventions  of  aristocratic 
life.  The  relation  between  these  unwritten  laws  of  our 
social  constitution  and  the  impetuous  ardour  of  the  lover, 
has  formed  the  main  theme  of  our  modern  love  stories 
in  the  novel  and  on  the  stage.  In  the  days  of  chivalry, 
when  love  ran  wild  in  the  woods,  woman  was  the  passive 
object  either  of  hunt  or  of  rescue ;  but  the  scene  of  battle 
being  shifted  to  the  boudoir  she  can  demand  her  own 
conditions  with  the  result  that  the  game  becomes  in- 
finitely more  refined  and  intricate.  Persons  of  both 
sexes,  outwardly  at  peace  but  inwardly  armed  to  the 
teeth,  meet  together  in  some  lady's  house  to  discuss  the 
subject  so  dangerous  to  both,  and  conversation  con- 
ditioned by  this  fact  inevitably  becomes  subtle,  allusive, 
intense;  for  it  derives  its  light  and  shade  from  the  flicker 
of  that  fire  which  the  company  finds  such  a  perilous 
fascination  in  playing  with.  Lyly's  work  does  not  ex- 
hibit quite  such  modernity  as  this,  but  we  may  truthfully 
say  that  his  Euphues  and  his  England  is  the  psychological 
novel  in  germ. 

Its  latent  possibilities  were  however  not  perceived  by 
the  writers  of  the  i6th  century.  The  style  which  had  in 
part  won  popularity  for  it  so  speedily  was  the  cause  also 
of  its  equally  speedy  decline.  Like  a  fossil  in  the  stratum 
of  euphuism  it  was  soon  covered  up  by  the  artificial  layer 
of  arcadianism.  The  novel  of  Sidney,  though  its  loose  and 
meandering  style  marked  a  reaction  against  euphuism, 
carried  on  the  Lylian  tradition  in  its  appeal  to  ladies. 
The  Arcadia,  in  no  way  so  modern  as  the  Euphues,  lies 
for  that  very  reason  more  directly  in  the  line  of  develop- 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH   NOVEL  83 

ment1 ;  for,  while  the  former  is  linked  by  the  heroical 
romance  of  the  seventeenth  century  to  the  romance 
of  this  day,  the  latter's  influence  is  not  visible  until 
the  eighteenth  century,  if  we  except  its  immediate 
Elizabethan  imitators.  And  yet,  as  we  remarked  of 
Lyly's  prose,  a  book  which  received  so  many  editions 
cannot  have  been  entirely  without  effect  upon  the  minds 
of  its  readers  and  upon  the  literature  of  the  age.  This 
influence,  however,  could  have  been  little  more  than 
suggestive  and  indirect,  and  it  is  quite  impossible  to 
determine  its  value.  Its  importance  for  us  lies  in  the 
fact  that  we  can  realise  how  it  anticipated  the  novel  of 
the  1 8th  and  ipth  centuries.  Not  until  the  days  of 
Richardson  is  it  possible  to  detect  a  Lylian  flavour  in 
English  fiction ;  and  even  here  it  would  be  risky  to 
insist  too  pointedly  on  any  inference  that  might  be 
drawn  from  the  coincidence  of  an  abridged  form  of 
Euphues  being  republished  (after  almost  a  century's 
oblivion)  twenty  years  before  the  appearance  of  Pamela. 
A  direct  literary  connexion  between  Lyly  and  Richard- 
son seems  out  of  the  question :  and  the  utmost  we  can 
say  with  certainty  is  that  the  novel  of  the  latter,  in  pro- 
viding moral  food  for  its  own  generation,  relieved  the 
1 8th  century  reader  of  the  necessity  of  going  back  to 
the  Elizabethan  writer  for  the  entertainment  he  desired. 
As  a  novelist,  therefore,  Lyly  was  only  of  secondary 
dynamical  importance,  by  which  I  mean  that,  although 
we  can  rest  assured  that  he  exercised  a  considerable 
influence  upon  later  writers,  we  cannot  actually  trace 
this  influence  at  work ;  we  cannot  in  fact  point  to  Lyly 
as  the  first  of  a  definite  series.  The  novel  like  its  style 
coloured,  but  did  not  deflect,  the  stream  of  English 
literature.  And  indeed  we  may  say  this  not  only  of 

1  It  was  Sidney  and  Nash  who  set  the  fashion  for  the  i7th  century. 

6—2 


84  JOHN   LYLY 

Euphues  but  of  Elizabethan  fiction  as  a  whole.  The 
public  to  which  a  i6th  century  novel  would  appeal  was 
a  small  one.  Few  people  in  those  days  could  read,  and 
of  these  the  majority  preferred  to  read  poetry;  and 
though,  as  we  have  seen,  Euphues  passed  through,  for 
the  age,  a  considerable  number  of  editions,  the  circle  of 
those  who  appreciated  Lyly,  Sidney,  and  Nash  must 
have  been  for  the  most  part  confined  to  the  Court.  And 
this  accounts  for  the  brevity  of  their  popularity  and  for 
its  intensity  while  it  lasted  ;  a  phenomenon  which  is  not 
seen  in  the  drama,  and  which  is  due  to  the  susceptibility 
of  Court  life  to  sudden  changes  of  fashion.  Drama  was 
the  natural  form  of  literature  in  an  age  when  most  people 
were  illiterate  and  yet  when  all  were  eager  for  literary 
entertainment.  Drama  was  therefore  the  main  current 
of  artistic  production,  the  prose  novel  being  quite  a 
minor,  almost  an  insignificant,  tributary.  Realising  then 
the  inevitable  limitations  which  surrounded  our  English 
fiction  at  its  birth  we  can  understand  its  infantile 
imperfections  and  the  subsequent  arrest  of  its  de- 
velopment. 

"The  novel  held  in  Elizabeth's  time  very  much  the 
same  place  as  was  held  by  the  drama  at  the  Restoration ; 
it  was  an  essentially  aristocratic  entertainment,  and  the 
same  pitfall  waylaid  both,  the  pitfall  of  artificiality. 
Dryden's  audiences  and  the  readers  of  Euphues  both 
sought  for  better  bread  than  is  made  of  wheat;  both 
were  supplied  with  what  satisfied  them  in  an  elaborate 
confection  of  husks1." 

1  Raleigh,  p.  57.     He  writes  Arcadia  for  Euphues  but  the  substitution 
is  legitimate. 


CHAPTER    III. 

LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST. 

So  far  we  have  been  dealing  with  those  of  Lyly's 
writings,  which,  though  they  are  his  most  famous,  form 
quite  a  small  section  of  his  work,  and  exerted  an  influence 
upon  later  writers  which  may  have  been  considerable  but 
was  certainly  indirect.  His  plays  on  the  other  hand,  in  the 
production  of  which  he  spent  the  better  part  of  his  life, 
greatly  outweigh  his  novel  both  in  aesthetic  and  historical 
importance.  To  attempt  to  estimate  Lyly's  position  as 
a  novelist  and  as  a  prose  writer  is  to  chase  the  will-o'-the- 
wisp  of  theory  over  the  morass  of  uncertainty ;  the  task 
of  investigating  his  comedies  is  altogether  simpler  and 
more  straightforward.  After  groping  our  way  through 
the  undergrowth  of  minor  literature,  we  come  out  upon 
the  great  highway  of  Elizabethan  art — the  drama.  Let 
us  first  see  how  Lyly  himself  came  to  tread  this  same 
pathway. 

There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  between  Mr  Bond 
and  Mr  Baker,  our  chief  authorities,  as  to  the  order  in 
which  Lyly  wrote  his  plays1.  But  though  Mr  Baker 
claims  priority  for  Endymion,  and  Mr  Bond  for  Campaspe, 

1  Baker,  p.  Ixxxviii,  places  Endymion  as  early  as  Sept.  1579.  Bond, 
vol.  in.  p.  10,  attempts  to  disprove  Baker's  contention,  and  in  vol.  II.  p.  309, 
he  maintains  chiefly  on  grounds  of  style  that  Campaspe  was  the  earliest  of 
Lyly's  plays,  being  produced  at  the  Christmas  of  1580. 


86  JOHN   LYLY 

both  are  convinced  that  our  author  was  already  in  1580 
beginning  to  look  to  the  stage  as  a  larger  arena  for  his 
artistic  genius  than  the  novel.  And  from  what  I  have 
said  of  his  life  at  Oxford  and  his  connexion  with  de  Vere, 
we  need  not  be  surprised  that  this  was  so.  It  would  be 
well  however  at  this  juncture  to  recapitulate,  and  in  part 
to  expand  those  remarks,  in  order  to  show  more  clearly 
how  Lyly's  dramatic  bent  was  formed.  Seats  of  learning, 
as  we  shall  see  presently,  had  long  before  the  days  of 
Lyly  favoured  the  comic  muse,  and  Oxford  was  no 
exception  to  this  rule.  Anthony  a  Wood  tells  us  how 
Richard  Edwardes  in  1566  produced  at  that  University 
his  play  Palamon  and  Arcite,  and  how  her  Majesty 
"laughed  heartily  thereat  and  gave  the  author  great 
thanks  for  his  pains";  a  scene  which  would  still  be  fresh 
in  men's  minds  five  years  after,  when  Lyly  entered 
Magdalen  College.  But  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  stretch 
a  point  here  since  we  know  from  the  Anatomy  of  Wit 
that  Lyly  was  a  student  of  Edwardes'  comedies1.  Again, 
William  Gager,  Pettie's  "dear  friend"  and  Lyly's  fellow- 
student,  was  a  dramatist,  while  Gosson  himself  tells  us 
of  comedies  which  he  had  written  before  1577. 

Probably  however  it  was  not  until  he  had  left  Oxford 
for  London  that  Lyly  conceived  the  idea  of  writing 
comedy,  for  we  must  attribute  its  original  suggestion 
to  his  friend  and  employer  the  Earl  of  Oxford.  Edward 
de  Vere,  Burleigh's  son-in-law,  had  visited  Italy,  and 
affected  the  vices  and  artificialities  of  that  country, 
returning  home,  we  are  told,  laden  with  silks  and  oriental 
stuffs  for  the  adornment  of  his  chamber  and  his  person. 
He  was  frequently  in  debt  and  still  more  frequently  in 
disgrace  with  the  Queen  and  with  his  father-in-law. 
Dilettante,  aesthete,  and  euphuist,  he  would  naturally 

1  Bond,  II.  p.  238. 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  8/ 

attract  the  Oxford  fop,  and  that  Lyly  attached  himself 
to  his  clique  disposes,  in  my  mind  at  least,  of  all  theories 
of  his  puritanical  tendencies.  Certainly  a  Nonconformist 
conscience  could  not  have  flourished  in  de  Vere's  house- 
hold. One  bond  between  the  Earl  and  his  secretary  was 
their  love  of  music — an  art  which  played  an  important 
part  in  the  beginning  of  our  comedy. 

In  relieving  the  action  of  his  plays  by  those  songs 
of  woodland  beauty  unmatched  in  literature  Shake- 
speare was  only  following  a  custom  set  by  his  predecessors, 
Udall,  Edwardes,  and  Lyly,  who  being  schoolmasters 
(and  the  two  latter  being  musicians  and  holding  positions 
in  choir  schools),  embroidered  their  comedies  with  lyrics 
to  be  sung  by  the  fresh  young  voices  of  their  pupils. 
De  Vere,  though  unconnected  with  a  school,  probably 
followed  the  same  tradition.  For  the  interesting  thing 
about  him  is  that  he  also  wrote  comedy.  Like  many 
members  of  the  nobility  in  those  days  he  maintained  his 
own  company  of  players;  and  we  find  them  in  1581 
giving  performances  at  Cambridge  and  Ipswich.  His 
comedies,  moreover,  though  now  lost  were  placed  in  the 
same  rank  as  those  of  Edwardes  by  the  Elizabethan 
critic  Puttenham1.  Now  as  secretary  of  such  a  man,  and 
therefore  in  close  intimacy  with  him,  it  would  be  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world  for  Lyly  to  try  his  hand 
at  play-writing,  and,  if  his  patron  approved  of  his  efforts, 
an  introduction  to  Court  could  be  procured,  since  Oxford 
was  Lord  High  Chamberlain,  and  the  play  would  be 
acted.  It  was  to  Oxford's  patronage,  therefore,  and 
not  to  his  subsequent  connexion  with  the  "children  of 
Powles,"  that  Lyly  owed  his  first  dramatic  impulse,  and 
probably  also  his  first  dramatic  success,  for  Campaspe 
and  Sapho  were  produced  at  Court  in  I5822.  His 

1  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.,  Edward  de  Vere. 
-  Bond,  II.  p.  230  (chronological  table). 


88  JOHN    LYLY 

appointment  at  the  choir  school  of  course  confirmed  his 
resolutions  and  thus  he  became  the  first  great  Elizabethan 
dramatist. 

But  a  purely  circumstantial  explanation  of  an  import- 
ant departure  in  a  man's  life  will  only  appear  satisfactory 
to  fatalists  who  worship  the  blind  god   Environment. 
And   without   indulging  in  any  abstruse  psychological 
discussion,   but   rather   looking   at   the    question    from 
a   general  point  of  view,  we  can   understand  how  an 
intellect   of  Lyly's  type,  as  revealed  by  the  EupJines, 
found  its  ultimate  expression  in  comedy.     Comedy,  as 
Meredith  tells  us,  is  only  possible  in  a  civilized  society, 
"where  ideas  are  current  and  the  perceptions  quick." 
We  have  already  touched  upon   this  point  and  later  we 
must  return  to  it  again  ;    but  for  the  moment  let   us 
notice  that  this  idea  of  comedy,  though  he  would  have 
been  quite  unable  to  formulate  it  in  words,  was  in  reality 
at  the  back  of  Lyly's  mind,  or  rather  we  should  perhaps 
say  that  he  quite  unconsciously  embodied  it.     He  was 
par  excellence  the  product  of  a  "  social  "  atmosphere  ;   he 
moved  more  freely  within  the  Court  than  without ;  his 
whole  mind  was  absorbed  by  the  subtleties  of  language  ; 
a  brilliant  conversation,  an  apt  repartee,  a  well-turned 
phrase  were  the  very  breath  of  his  nostrils  ;  his  ideal 
was  the  intellectual  beau.     Add  to  this  compound  the 
ingredient  of  literary  ambition  and  the  result  is  a  comic 
dramatist.      Lyly,    Congreve,    Sheridan,    were    all    men 
of  fashion   first  and  writers   of  comedy  after.     In   the 
author  of  Lady  Windermeres  Fan  we  have  lately  seen 
another  example — the  example  of  one  whose  ambition 
was    to    be   "  the   first   well-dressed    philosopher  in   the 
history   of  thought."     Poems,  novels,    fairy  stories,    he 
gave  us,  but  it  was  on  the  stage  of  comedy  that  he 
eventually    found    his    true    me'tier.      "  With    Ettp/tues," 
writes  Mr  Bond,  "  we  enter  the  path  which  leads  to  the 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  89 

Restoration  dramatists and  in  Lucilla  and  Camilla 

we  are  prescient  of  Millamant  and  Belinda1."  This  is 
very  true,  but  the  statement  has  a  nearer  application 
which  Mr  Bond  misses.  Camilla  is  the  lady  who  moves 
under  varied  names  through  all  Lyly's  plays.  The 
second  part  of  Euphues  and  the  first  of  Lyly's  comedies 
are  as  closely  connected  psychologically  and  aesthetic- 
ally, as  they  were  in  point  of  time. 

SECTION  I.     English  Comedy  before  1580. 

But  when  Lyly's  creations  began  to  walk  the  boards, 
the  English  stage  was  already  some  centuries  old  and 
therefore,  in  order  to  appreciate  our  author's  position, 
a  few  words  are  necessary  upon  the  development  of 
our  drama  and  especially  of  comedy  previous  to  his 
time. 

Though  the  miracle  play  of  our  forefathers  frequently 
contained  a  species  of  coarse  humour  usually  put  into 
the  mouth  of  the  Devil,  who  appears  to  have  been  for 
the  middle  ages  very  much  what  the  "  comic  muse  "  is 
for  us  moderns,  it  is  to  the  morality  not  to  the  miracle 
that  one  should  look  for  the  real  beginnings  of  comedy 
as  distinct  from  mere  buffoonery. 

The  morality  was  not  so  much  an  offshoot  as  a  com- 
plement of  the  miracle.  They  stood  to  each  other,  as 
sermon  does  to  service.  To  say  therefore  that  the 
morality  secularized  the  drama  is  to  go  too  far ;  as  well 
might  we  say  that  Luther  secularized  Christianity. 
What  it  did,  however,  was  important  enough  ;  it  severed 
the  connexion  between  drama  and  ritual.  The  miracle, 
treating  of  the  history  of  mankind  from  the  Creation  to 
the  days  of  Christ,  unfolded  before  the  eyes  of  its 
1  Bond,  I.  p.  161. 


90  JOHN    LYLY 

audience  the  grand  scheme  of  human  salvation  ;  the 
morality  on  the  other  hand  was  not  concerned  with 
historical  so  much  as  practical  Christianity.  Its  object 
was  to  point  a  moral :  and  it  did  this  in  two  ways ; 
either  as  an  affirmative,  constructive  inculcator  of  what 
life  should  be, — as  the  portrayer  of  the  ideal ;  or  as 
a  negative,  critical  describer  of  the  types  of  life  actually 
existing, — as  the  portrayer  of  the  real.  It  approached 
more  nearly  to  comedy  in  its  latter  function,  but  in  both 
aspects  it  really  prepared  the  way  for  the  comic  muse. 
The  natural  prey  of  comedy,  as  our  greatest  comic 
writer  has  taught  us,  is  folly,  "known  to  it  in  all  her 
transformations,  in  every  disguise  ;  and  it  is  with  the 
springing  delight  of  hawk  over  heron,  hound  after  fox, 
that  it  gives  her  chase,  never  fretting,  never  tiring,  sure 
of  having  her,  allowing  her  no  rest."  Thus  it  is  that 
characters  in  comedy,  symbolizing  as  they  often  do  some 
social  folly,  tend  to  be  rather  types  than  personalities. 
The  morality,  therefore,  in  substituting  typical  figures, 
however  crude,  for  the  mechanical  religious  characters  of 
the  miracle,  makes  an  immense  advance  towards  comedy. 
Moreover,  the  very  selection  of  types  requires  an  appre- 
ciation, if  not  an  analysis,  of  the  differences  of  human 
character,  an  appreciation  for  which  there  was  no  need 
in  the  miracle.  In  the  morality  again  the  action  is  no 
longer  determined  by  tradition,  and  it  becomes  incum- 
bent on  the  playwright  to  provide  motives  for  the  move- 
ments of  his  puppets.  It  follows  naturally  from  this 
that  situations  must  be  devised  to  show  up  the  particular 
quality  which  each  type  symbolizes.  We  need  not 
enter  the  vexed  question  of  the  origin  of  plot  construc- 
tion ;  but  we  may  notice  in  this  connexion  that  the 
morality  certainly  gave  us  that  peculiar  form  of  plot- 
movement  which  is  most  suitable  to  comedy.  To  quote 


LYLY   THE'  DRAMATIST  9 1 

Mr  Gayley's  words  :  "  In  tragedy,  the  movement  must 
be  economic  of  its  ups  and  downs  ;  once  headed  down- 
wards it  must  plunge,  with  but  one  or  two  vain  recovers, 
to  the  abyss.  In  comedy,  on  the  other  hand,  though  the 
movement  is  ultimately  upward,  the  crises  are  more 
numerous ;  the  oftener  the  individual  stumbles  without 
breaking  his  neck,  and  the  more  varied  his  discomfitures, 
so  long  as  they  are  temporary,  the  better  does  he 

enjoy  his  ease  in  the  cool  of  the  day Now  the 

novelty  of  the  plot  in  the  moral  play,  lay  in  the  fact  that 
the  movement  was  of  this  oscillating,  upward  kind — a 
kind  unknown  as  a  rule  to  the  miracle,  whose  conditions 
were  less  fluid,  and  to  the  farce,  which  was  too  shallow 
and  superficial1." 

If  all  these  claims  be  justifiable  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  morality  was  of  the  utmost  importance 
in  the  history  not  only  of  comedy  but  of  English 
drama  as  a  whole.  Though  it  was  the  cousin,  not  the 
child  of  the  miracle,  though  it  cannot  be  said  to  have 
secularized  our  drama,  it  is  the  link  between  the  ritual 
play  and  the  play  of  pure  amusement ;  it  connects  the 
rood  gallery  with  the  London  theatre.  When  Symonds 
writes  that  the  morality  "  can  hardly  be  said  to  lie  in 
the  direct  line  of  evolution  between  the  miracle  and  the 
legitimate  drama"  we  may  in  part  agree  with  him;  but 
he  is  quite  wrong  when  he  goes  on  to  describe  it  as  "an 
abortive  side-effect,  which  was  destined  to  bear  barren 
fruit2." 

The  real  secularization  of  the  drama  was  in  the  first 
place  probably  due  to  classical  influences — or,  to  be 
more  precise,  I  should  perhaps  say,  scholastic  influences 
— and  it  is  not  until  the  i6th  century  that  these  in- 
fluences become  prominent.  I  say  "become  prominent," 
1  Gayley,  p.  Ixiv.  2  Symonds,  p.  199. 


92  JOHN    LYLY 

because  Terence  and  Plautus  were  known  from  the 
earliest  times,  and  Dr  Ward  is  inclined  to  think  that 
Latin  comedy  affected  the  earlier  drama  of  England  to 
a  considerable  extent1,  although  good  examples  of 
Terentian  comedy  are  not  found  until  the  i6th  century. 
Humanism  again  comes  forward  as  an  important 
literary  formative  element.  The  part  which  the  student 
class  took  in  the  development  of  European  drama  as  a 
whole  has  as  yet  scarcely  been  appreciated.  It  is  to 
scholars  that  the  birth  of  the  secular  Drama  must  be 
attributed.  Lyly,  as  we  said,  made  use  of  his  master- 
ship for  the  production  of  his  plays,  but  Lyly  was  by 
no  means  the  first  schoolmaster-dramatist.  Schools  and 
universities  had  long  before  his  day  been  productive  of 
drama;  our  very  earliest  existing  saints'  play  or  marvel 
was  produced  by  a  certain  Geoffrey  at  Dunstable,  "de 
consuetudine  magistrorum  et  scholarum2."  And  this 
was  only  natural,  seeing  that  at  such  places  any  number 
of  actors  is  available  and  all  are  supposed  to  be  in- 
terested in  literature.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  however, 
and  illustrative  of  the  connexion  between  comedy  and 
music,  that  of  all  places  of  education  choir  schools 
seem  to  have  usurped  the  lion's  share  of  drama.  John 
Hey  wood,  the  first  to  break  away  from  the  tradition  of 
the  morality,  was  a  choir  boy  of  the  Chapel  Royal,  and 
afterwards  in  all  probability  held  a  post  there  as 
master3.  Heywood's  brilliant,  but  farcical  interludes 
are  too  slight  to  merit  the  title  of  comedy,  yet  he  is 
of  great  importance  because  of  his  rejection  of  allegories 
and  of  his  use  of  "personal  types"  instead  of  "personified 

1  Ward,  I.  p.  7. 
-  Gayley,  p.  xiv. 

3  I   put  this  interpretation  upon  the  account  of  Heywood's  receiving 
40  shillings  from  Queen  Mary  "for  pleying  an  interlude  with  his  children." 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  93 

abstractions1."  It  was  not  until  1540,  a  few  years  after 
Heywood's  interlude  The  Play  of  the  Wether,  that  pure 
English  comedy  appears,  and  we  must  turn  to  Eton  to 
discover  its  cradle,  for  Nicholas  Udall's  Roister  Doister 
has  every  claim  to  rank  as  the  first  completely  con- 
structed comedy  in  our  language — the  first  comedy  of 
flesh  and  blood.  Roister  smacks  of  the  "miles  gloriosus"; 
Merygreeke  combines  the  vice  with  the  Terentian  rogue; 
and  yet,  when  all  is  said,  Udall's  play  remains  a  remark- 
ably original  production,  realistic  and  English. 

Next,  in  point  of  time  and  importance,  comes 
Stevenson's  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  still  more 
thoroughly  English  than  the  last,  though  quite  inferior 
as  a  comedy,  and  indeed  scarcely  rising  above  the  level 
of  farce.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  it  is  a  drama  of  English 
rustic  life,  it  is  directly  antecedent  to  Mother  Bombie, 
and  perhaps  also  to  the  picaresque  novel.  Secular 
dramas  now  began  to  multiply  apace.  But  keeping  our 
eye  upon  comedy,  and  upon  Lyly  in  particular  as  we 
near  the  date  of  his  advent,  it  will  be  sufficient  I  think 
to  mention  two  more  names  to  complete  the  chain  of 
development.  From  Cambridge,  the  nurse  of  Stevenson, 
we  must  now  turn  to  Oxford ;  and,  as  we  do  so,  we  seem 
to  be  drawing  very  close  to  the  end  of  our  journey. 
Thus  far  we  have  had  nothing  like  the  romantic  comedy 
— the  comedy  of  sentiment,  of  love,  the  comedy  which 
is  at  once  serious  and  witty,  and  which  contains  the 
elements  of  tragedy.  This  appears,  or  is  at  least  fore- 
shadowed for  the  first  time,  about  four  years  after 
Stevenson's  "first-rate  screaming  farce,"  as  Symonds 
has  dubbed  it,  in  the  Damon  and  Pithias  of  Richard 
Edwardes,  a  writer  with  whom,  as  we  have  seen,  Lyly 
was  thoroughly  familiar.  Indeed,  the  play  in  question 

1  Ward,  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.,  Heywood. 


94  JOHN    LYLY 

anticipates  our  author  in  many  ways,  for  example  in 
the  introduction  of  pages,  in  the  use  of  English  proverbs 
and  Latin  quotations,  and  in  the  insertion  of  songs1. 
With  reference  to  the  last  point,  we  may  remark  that 
Edwardes  like  Lyly  was  interested  in  music,  and  like 
him  also  held  a  post  in  a  choir  school,  being  one  of  the 
"gentlemen  of  the  Chapel  Royal."  In  the  Damon  and 
Pithias  the  old  morality  is  once  and  for  all  discarded. 
The  play  is  entirely  free  from  all  allegorical  elements, 
and  is  only  faintly  tinged  with  didacticism.  But  we 
cannot  express  the  aim  of  Edwardes  better  than  in  his 
own  words: 

"In  comedies  the  greatest  skyll  is  this,  lightly  to  touch 
All  thynges  to  the  quick ;   and  eke  to  frame  each  person  so 
That  by  his  common  talke,  you  may  his  nature  rightly  know." 

To  touch  lightly  and  yet  with  penetration,  to  reveal 
character  by  dialogue,  this  is  indeed  to  write  modern 
drama,  modern  comedy. 

It  would  seem  that  between  Edwardes  and  Lyly 
there  was  no  room  for  another  link,  so  closely  does  the 
one  follow  the  other;  and  yet  one  more  play  must  be 
mentioned  to  complete  the  series.  This  time  we  are 
no  longer  brought  into  touch  with  the  classics  or  with 
the  scholastic  influences,  for  the  play  in  question  is  a 
translation  from  the  Italian,  being  in  fact  Ariosto's 
Suppositi,  englished  by  George  Gascoigne2.  Though 
a  translation  it  was  more  than  a  transcript ;  it  was 
englished  in  the  true  sense  of  that  word,  in  sentiment 
as  well  as  in  phrase.  Its  chief  importance  lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  written  in  prose,  and  is  therefore  the  first 
prose  comedy  in  our  language.  But  Mr  Gay  ley  would 
go  further  than  this,  for  he  describes  it  as  "the  first 
English  comedy  in  every  way  worthy  of  the  name." 

1  Bond,  II.  p.  238.  2  1566. 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  95 

It  was  written  entirely  for  amusement,  and  for  the 
amusement  of  adults,  not  of  children  ;  and  if  it  were 
the  only  product  of  Gascoigne's  pen  it  would  justify  the 
remark  of  an  early  i/th  century  critic,  who  says  of  this 
writer  that  he  "brake  the  ice  for  our  quainter  poets  who 
now  write,  that  they  may  more  safely  swim  through  the 
main  ocean  of  sweet  poesy";  for,  to  quote  a  modern 
writer,  "with  the  blood  of  the  New  comedy,  the  Latin 
comedy,  the  Renaissance  in  its  veins,  it  is  far  ahead 
of  its  English  contemporaries,  if  not  of  its  time1."  The 
play  was  well  known  and  popular  among  the  Eliza- 
bethans, being  revived  at  Oxford  in  I5822.  Shakespeare 
used  it  for  the  construction  of  his  Taming  of  the  SJirew: 
and  altogether  it  is  difficult  to  say  how  much  Elizabethan 
drama  probably  owed  to  this  one  comedy,  which  though 
Italian  in  origin  was  carefully  adapted  to  English  taste 
by  its  translator.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Lyly 
studied  this  among  other  of  Gascoigne's  works,  and  that 
he  must  have  learnt  many  lessons  from  it,  though  the 
fact  does  not  appear  to  have  been  sufficiently  appre- 
ciated by  Lylian  students ;  for  even  Mr  Bond  fails,  I 
think,  to  realise  its  importance. 

This,  in  brief  outline,  is  the  history  of  our  comedy 
down  to  the  time  when  Lyly  took  it  in  hand  ;  or  should 
we  not  rather  say  "  an  introduction  to  the  history  of  our 
comedy  "  ?  For  true  English  comedy  is  not  to  be  found 
in  any  of  the  plays  we  have  mentioned.  Heywood, 
Udall,  Stevenson,  Edwardes,  are  the  names  that  convey 
"  broken  lights  "  of  comedy,  hints  of  the  dawn,  nothing 
more  ;  and  Gascoigne  was  a  translator.  The  supreme 
importance  of  a  writer,  who  at  this  juncture  produced 
eight  comedies  of  sustained  merit,  and  of  varying  types, 
is  something  which  is  quite  beyond  computation.  But 
1  Gayley,  p.  Ixxxv.  2  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.,  Gascoigne,  George. 


96  JOHN    LYLY 

if  we  are  to  attempt  to  realise  the  greatness  of  our  debt 
to  Lyly,  let  us  estimate  exactly  how  much  these  previous 
efforts  had  done  in  the  way  of  pioneer  work,  and  how  far 
also  they  fell  short  of  comedy  in  the  strict  sense  of  that 
word. 

The  fifty  years  which  lie  between  Heywood  and  Lyly 
saw  considerable  progress,  but  progress  of  a  negative 
rather  than  a  constructive  nature,  and  moreover  progress 
which  came  in  fits  and  starts,  and  not  continuously.  It 
was  in  fact  a  period  of  transition  and  of  individual  and 
disconnected  experiments.  Each  of  the  writers  above 
mentioned  contributed  something  towards  the  common 
development,  but  not  one  of  them,  except  Ariosto's 
translator,  gave  us  comedy  which  may  be  considered 
complete  in  every  way.  They  all  display  a  very 
elementary  knowledge  of  plot  construction.  Udall  is 
perhaps  the  most  successful  in  this  respect ;  his  plot  is 
trivial  but,  well  versed  as  he  is  in  Terence,  he  manages 
to  give  it  an  ordered  and  natural  development.  But  the 
other  pre-Lylian  dramatists  quite  failed  to  realise  the 
vital  importance  of  plot,  which  is  indeed  the  very  essence 
of  comedy;  and,  in  expending  energies  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  an  argument,  as  in  Jacke  Jugeler,  which  was  a 
parody  of  transubstantiation,  or  upon  the  construction 
of  disconnected  humorous  situations,  as  in  Gammer 
Gurtoris  Needle,  they  missed  the  whole  point  of  comedy. 
Again,  though  there  is  a  clear  idea  of  distinction  and 
interplay  of  characters,  there  is  little  perception  of  the 
necessity  of  developing  character  as  the  plot  moves 
forward.  Merygreeke,  it  may  be  objected,  is  an  example 
of  such  development,  but  the  alteration  in  Merygreeke's 
nature  is  due  to  inconsistency,  not  to  evolution.  More- 
over, stage  conventions  had  not  yet  become  a  matter  of 
fixed  tradition.  "We  have  a  perpetual  conflict  between 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  97 

what  spectators  actually  see  and  what  they  are  supposed 
to  see,  between  the  time  actually  passed  and  that  sup- 
posed to  have  elapsed  ;  an  outrageous  demand  on  the 
imagination  in  one  place,  a  refusal  to  exercise  or  allow 
us  to  exercise  it  in  another1."  Further,  English  comedy 
before  1580  was  marked,  on  the  one  hand,  by  its  poetic 
literary  form  and,  on  the  other,  by  its  almost  complete 
absence  of  poetic  ideas.  Lyly,  with  the  instinct  of  a 
born  conversationalist,  realised  that  prose  was  the  only 
possible  dress  for  comedy  that  should  seek  to  represent 
contemporary  life.  But  even  in  their  use  of  verse  his 
predecessors  were  unsuccessful.  Udall  seemed  to  have 
thought  that  his  unequal  dogtail  lines  would  wag  if  he 
struck  a  rhyme  at  the  end,  and  even  Edwardes  was  little 
better.  The  use  of  blank  verse  had  yet  to  be  discovered, 
and  Lyly  was  to  have  a  hand  in  this  matter  also2.  As 
for  poetical  treatment  of  comedy,  Edwardes  is  the  only 
one  who  even  approaches  it.  He  does  so,  because  he 
sees  that  the  comic  muse  only  ceases  to  be  a  mask  when 
sentiment  is  allowed  to  play  over  her  features.  And 
even  he  only  half  perceives  it ;  for  the  sentiment  of 
friendship  is  not  strong  enough  for  complete  animation, 
the  muse's  eyes  may  twinkle,  but  passion  alone  will  give 
them  depth  and  let  the  soul  shine  through.  But,  in 
order  that  passion  should  fill  comedy  with  the  breath 
of  life,  it  was  necessary  that  both  sexes  should  walk  the 
stage  on  an  equal  footing.  That  which  comedy  before 
1580  lacked,  that  which  alone  could  round  it  off  into  a 
poetic  whole,  was  the  female  element.  "Comedy,"  writes 
George  Meredith,  "  lifts  women  to  a  station  offering 
them  free  play  for  their  wit,  as  they  usually  show  it, 

1  Bond,  ii.  p.  237. 

2  George  Gascoigne,  whose  importance  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
realised  by  Elizabethan  students,  also  produced  a  drama  in  blank  verse.  • 

W.  7 


98  JOHN    LYLY 

when  they  have  it,  on  the  side  of  sound  sense.  The 
higher  the  comedy,  the  more  prominent  the  part  they 
enjoy  in  it."  But  the  dramatist  cannot  lift  them  far  ; 
the  civilized  plane  must  lie  only  just  beneath  the  comic 
plane  ;  the  stage  cannot  be  lighted  by  woman's  wit  if 
the  audience  have  not  yet  realised  that  brain  forms 
a  part  of  the  feminine  organism.  In  the  days  of  Eliza- 
•beth  this  realisation  began  to  dawn  in  men's  minds ;  but 
it  was  Lyly  who  first  expressed  it  in  literature,  in  his 
novel  and  then  in  his  dramas.  Those  who  preceded 
him  were  only  dimly  conscious  of  it,  and  therefore  they 
failed  to  seize  upon  it  as  material  for  art.  It  was  at 
Court,  the  Court  of  a  great  virgin  Queen,  that  the 
equality  of  social  privileges  for  women  was  first  estab- 
lished ;  it  was  a  courtier  who  introduced  heroines  into 
our  drama. 

SECTION  II.     The  Eight  Plays. 

Concerning  the  order  of  Lyly's  plays  there  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  some  difference  of  opinion.  The  discussion 
between  Mr  Bond  and  Mr  Baker  in  reality  turns  upon 
the  interpretation  of  the  allegory  of  Endymion,  and  it  is 
therefore  one  of  those  questions  of  literary  probability 
which  can  never  hope  to  receive  a  satisfactory  answer. 
Both  critics,  however,  are  in  agreement  as  to  the  proper 
method  of  classification.  They  divide  the  dramas  into 
four  categories  :  historical,  of  which  Campaspe  is  the  sole 
example ;  allegorical,  which  includes  Sapho  and  Phao, 
Endymion,  and  Midas;  pastoral,  which  includes  Gallathea, 
The  Woman  in  the  Moon,  and  Love's  Metamorphosis;  and 
lastly  realistic,  of  which  again  there  is  only  one  example, 
Mother  Bombie.  The  fault  which  may  be  found  with  this 
classification  is  that  the  so-called  pastoral  plays  have 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  99 

much  of  the  allegorical  about  them,  and  it  is  perhaps 
better,  therefore,  to  consider  them  rather  as  a  subdivision 
of  class  two  than  as  a  distinct  species. 

For  the  moment  putting  on  one  side  all  questions  of 
the  allegory  of  Endymion,  there  are  two  reasons  which 
seem  to  go  a  long  way  towards  justifying  Mr  Bond  for 
placing  Campaspe  as  the  earliest  of  Lyly's  plays.  In  the 
first  place  the  atmosphere  of  Eupkues,  which  becomes 
weaker  in  the  other  plays,  is  so  unmistakeable  in  this 
historical  drama  as  to  force  the  conclusion  upon  us  that 
they  belong  to  the  same  period.  The  painter  Apelles, 
whose  name  seemed  almost  to  obsess  Lyly  in  his  novel, 
is  one  of  the  chief  characters  of  Campaspe,  and  the 
dialogue  is  more  decidedly  euphuistic  than  any  other 
play. .  The  second  point  we  may  notice  is  one  which  can 
leave  very  little  doubt  as  to  the  correctness  of  Mr  Bond's 
chronology.  Campaspe  and  Sapho  were  published  before 
1585,  that  is,  before  Lyly  accepted  the  mastership  at  the 
St  Paul's  choir  school,  whereas  none  of  his  other  plays 
came  into  the  printer's  hands  until  after  the  inhibition  of 
the  boys'  acting  rights  in  1591;  the  obvious  inference 
being  that  Lyly  printed  his  plays  only  when  he  had  no 
interest  in  preserving  the  acting  rights. 

But  whatever  date  we  assign  to  Campaspe,  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  it  was  one  of  the  first  dramas  in  our 
language  with  an  historical  background.  Indeed,  Kynge 
JoJian  is  the  only  play  before  1580  which  can  claim  to 
rival  it  in  this  respect.  But  Kynge  JoJian  was  written 
solely  for  the  purpose  of  religious  satire,  being  an  attack 
upon  the  priesthood  and  Church  abuses.  It  must,  there- 
fore, be  classed  among  those  political  moralities,  of  which 
so  many  examples  appeared  during  the  early  part  of  the 
1 6th  century.  Campaspe,  on  the  other  hand,  is  entirely 
devoid  of  any  ethical  or  satirical  motive.  Allegory, 

7—2 


100  JOHN    LYLY 

which  Lyly  was  able  to  put  to  his  own  peculiar  uses, 
is  here  quite  absent.  The  sole  aim  of  its  author  was  to 
provide  amusement,  and  in  this  respect  it  must  have 
been  entirely  successful.  The  play  is  interesting,  and  at 
times  amusing,  even  to  a  modern  reader ;  but  to  those 
who  witnessed  its  performance  at  Blackfriars,  and,  two 
years  later,  at  the  Court,  it  would  appear  as  a  marvel  of 
wit  and  dramatic  power  after  the  crude  material  which 
had  hitherto  been  offered  to  them.  In  the  choice  of  his 
subject  Lyly  shows  at  once  that  he  is  an  artist  with  a 
feeling  for  beauty,  even  if  he  seldom  rises  to  its  sublimi- 
ties. The  story  of  the  play,  taken  from  Pliny,  is  that  of 
Alexander's  love  for  his  Theban  captive  Campaspe,  and 
of  his  subsequent  self-sacrifice  in  giving  her  up  to  her 
lover  Apelles.  The  social  change,  which  I  have  sought 
to  indicate  in  the  preceding  pages,  is  at  once  evident  in 
this  play.  "  We  calling  Alexander  from  his  grave,"  says 
its  Prologue1,  "  seeke  only  who  was  his  love";  and  the 
remark  is  a  sweep  of  the  hat  to  the  ladies  of  the  Court^ 
whose  importance,  as  an  integral  part  of  the  audience,  is 
now  for  the  first  time  openly  acknowledged.  "  Alexander, 
the  great  conqueror  of  the  world,"  says  Lyly  with  his 
hand  upon  his  heart,  "only  interests  me  as  a  lover." 
The  whole  motive  of  the  play,  which  would  have  been 
meaningless  to  a  mediaeval  audience,  is  a  compliment  to 
the  ladies.  It  is  as  if  our  author  nets  Mars  with  Venus, 
and  presents  the  shamefaced  god  as  an  offering  of  flattery 
to  the  Queen  and  her  Court.  Campaspe  is,  in  fact,  the 
first  romantic  drama,  not  only  the  forerunner  of  Shake- 
speare, but  a  remote  ancestor  of  Hernani  and  the  iQth 
century  French  theatre.  "  The  play's  defect,"  says 
Mr  Bond,  "  is  one  of  passion " — a  criticism  which  is 
applicable  to  all  Lyly's  dramas ;  and  yet  we  must  not 

1  From  Prologue  at  the  Court. 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  IOI 

forget  that  Lyly  was  the  earliest  to  deal  with  passion 
dramatically.  The  love  of  Alexander  is  certainly  un- 
emotional, not  to  say  callous ;  but  possibly  the  great 
monarch's  equanimity  was  a  veiled  tribute  to  the  sup- 
posed indifference  of  the  virgin  Queen  to  all  matters  of 
Cupid's  trade.  Between  Campaspe  and  Apelles,  how- 
ever, we  have  scenes  which  are  imbued,  if  not  vitalized, 
by  passion.  Lyly  was  a  beginner,  and  his  fault  lay  in 
attempting  too  much.  Caring  more  for  brilliancy  of 
dialogue  than  for  anything  else,  he  was  no  more  likely 
to  be  successful  here,  in  portraying  passion  through  con- 
versation weighted  by  euphuism,  than  he  had  been  in  his 
novel.  Yet  his  endeavour  to  depict  the  conflict  of  mas- 
culine passion  with  feminine  wit,  impatient  sallies  neatly 
parried,  deliberate  lunges  quietly  turned  aside,  was  in 
every  way  praiseworthy.  "A  witte  apt  to  conceive  and 
quickest  to  answer"  is  attributed  by  Alexander  to  Cam- 
paspe, and,  though  she  exhibits  few  signs  of  it,  yet  in  his 
very  idea  of  endowing  women  with  wit  Lyly  leads  us  on 
to  the  high-road  of  comedy  leading  to  Congreve. 

In  addition  to  the  romantic  elements  above  described, 
we  have  here  also  that  page-prattle  which  is  so  charac- 
teristic of  all  Lyly's  plays.  These  urchins,  full  of  mischief 
and  delighting  in  quips,  were  probably  borrowed  from 
Edwardes,  but  Lyly  made  them  all  his  own  ;  and  one 
can  understand  how  naturally  their  parts  would  be  played 
by  his  boy-actors.  Their  repartee,  when  it  is  not  pulling 
to  pieces  some  Latin  quotation  familiar  to  them  at  school, 
or  ridiculing  a  point  of  logic,  is  often  really  witty.  One 
of  them,  overhearing  the  hungry  Manes  at  strife  with 
Diogenes  over  the  matter  of  an  overdue  dinner,  exclaims 
to  his  friend,  "This  is  their  use,  nowe  do  they  dine  one 
upon  another."  Diogenes  again,  in  whom  we  may  see 
the  prototype  of  Shakespeare's  Timon,  is  amusing  enough 


102  JOHN    LYLY 

at  times  with  his  "  dogged  "  snarlings  and  sallies  which 
frequently  however  miss  their  mark.  He  and  the  pages 
form  an  underplot  of  farce,  upon  which  Lyly  improved 
in  his  later  plays,  bringing  it  also  more  into  connexion 
with  the  main  plot.  In  passing,  we  may  notice  that  few 
of  Shakespeare's  plays  are  without  this  farcical  sub- 
stratum. 

Leaving  the  question  of  dramatic  construction  and 
characterization  for  a  more  general  treatment  later,  we 
now  pass  on  to  the  consideration  of  Lyly's  allegorical 
plays.  The  absence  of  all  allegory  from  Campaspe  shows 
that  Lyly  had  broken  with  the  morality :  and  we  seem 
therefore  to  be  going  back,  when  two  years  later  we  have 
an  allegorical  play  from  his  pen.  But  in  reality  there  is 
no  retrogression ;  for  with  Lyly  allegory  is  not  an  ethical 
instrument.  I  have  mentioned  examples  of  plays  before 
his  day  which  employed  the  machinery  of  the  morality, 
for  the  purposes  of  political  and  religious  satire.  The 
old  form  of  drama  seems  to  have  developed  a  keen 
sensibility  to  double  entendre  among  theatre-goers. 
Nothing  indeed  is  so  remarkable  about  the  Elizabethan 
stage  as  the  secret  understanding  which  almost  in- 
variably existed  between  the  dramatist  and  his  audience. 
We  have  already  had  occasion  to  notice  it  in  connexion 
with  Field's  parody  of  Kyd.  The  spectators  were  always 
on  the  alert  to  detect  some  veiled  reference  to  prominent 
political  figures  or  to  current  affairs.  Often  in  fact,  as 
was  natural,  they  would  discover  hints  where  nothing 
was  implied;  and  for  one  Mrs  Gallup  in  modern  America 
there  must  have  been  a  dozen  in  every  auditorium  of 
Elizabethan  England.  Such  over-clever  busybodies 
would  readily  twist  an  innocent  remark  into  treason  or 
sacrilege,  and  therefore,  long  before  Lyly's  time,  it  was 
customary  for  a  playwright  to  defend  himself  in  the  pro- 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  1 03 

logue  against  such  treatment,  by  denying  any  ambiguity 
in  his  dialogue.  In  an  audience  thus  susceptible  to 
innuendo  Lyly  saw  his  opportunity.  He  was  a  courtier 
writing  for  the  Court,  he  was  also,  let  us  add,  anxious  to 
obtain  a  certain  coveted  post  at  the  Revels'  Office.  He 
was  an  artist  not  entirely  without  ideals,  yet  ever  ready 
to  curry  favour  and  to  aim  at  material  advantages  by 
his  literary  facility.  The  idea  therefore  of  writing  dramas 
which  should  be,  from  beginning  to  end,  nothing  but  an 
ingenious  compliment  to  his  royal  mistress  would  not  be 
in  the  least  distasteful  to  him.  But  we  must  not  attribute 
too  much  to  motives  of  personal  ambition.  Spenser's 
Faery  Queen  was  not  published  until  1590;  but  Lyly 
had  known  Spenser  before  the  latter's  departure  for 
Ireland,  and,  even  if  the  scheme  of  that  poet's  master- 
piece had  not  been  confided  to  him,  the  ideas  which  it 
contained  were  in  the  air.  The  cult  of  Elizabeth,  which 
was  far  from  being  a  piece  of  insincere  adulation,  had 
for  some  time  past  been  growing  into  a  kind  of  literary 
religion.  Even  to  us,  there  is  something  magical  about 
the  great  Queen,  and  we  can  hardly  be  surprised  that  the 
pagans  of  those  days  hailed  her  as  half  divine.  When 
Lyly  commenced  his  career,  she  had  been  on  the  throne 
for  twenty  years,  in  itself  a  wonderful  fact  to  those  who 
could  remember  the  gloom  which  had  surrounded  her 
accession.  Through  a  period  of  infinite  danger  both  at 
home  and  abroad  she  had  guided  England  with  in- 
trepidity and  success  ;  and  furthermore  she  had  done 
all  this  single-handed,  refusing  to  share  her  throne  with 
a  partner  even  for  the  sake  of  protection,  and  yet  im- 
proving upon  the  Habsburg  policy1  by  making  coquetry 
the  pivot  of  her  diplomacy.  It  was  no  wonder  therefore 
that, 

1  "  Alii  bella  gerunt,  tu  felix  Austria  nube." 


104  JOHN    LYLY 

"As  the  imperial  votaress  passed  on 
In  maiden  meditation  fancy  free," 

the  courtiers  she  fondled,  and  the  artists  she  patronized, 
should  half  in  fancy,  half  in  earnest,  think  of  her  as 
something  more  than  human,  and  search  the  fables  of 
their  newly  discovered  classics  for  examples  of  enthroned 
chastity  and  unconquerable  virgin  queens. 

All  Lyly's  plays  except  Campaspe  and  Mother  Bombie 
are  written  in  this  vein ;  each,  as  Symonds  beautifully 
puts  it,  is  "  a  censer  of  exquisitely  chased  silver,  full  of 
incense  to  be  tossed  before  Elizabeth  upon  her  throne." 
In  the  three  plays  Sapho  and  Pkao,  Endymion,  and 
Midas  this  element  of  flattery  is  more  prominent  than 
in  the  others,  inasmuch  as  they  are  not  only  full  of  com- 
pliments unmistakeably  directed  towards  the  Queen,  but 
they  actually  seek  to  depict  incidents  from  her  reign 
under  the  guise  of  classical  mythology.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  they  have  been  classified  under  the  label  of 
allegory.  It  is  quite  possible,  however,  to  read  and  enjoy 
these  plays  without  a  suspicion  of  any  inner  meaning ; 
nor  does  the  absence  of  such  suspicion  render  the  action 
of  the  play  in  any  way  unintelligible,  so  skilfully  does 
Lyly  manipulate  his  story.  With  a  view,  therefore,  to 
his  position  in  the  history  of  Elizabethan  drama,  and  to 
the  lessons  which  he  taught  those  who  came  after  him, 
the  superficial  interpretation  of  each  play  is  all  that  need 
engage  our  attention,  and  we  shall  content  ourselves 
with  briefly  indicating  the  actual  incident  which  it 
symbolizes. 

The  story  of  Sapho  and  P/iao  is,  very  shortly,  as 
follows.  Phao,  a  poor  ferryman,  is  endowed  by  Venus 
with  the  gift  of  beauty.  Sapho,  who  in  Lyly's  hands 
is  stripped  of  all  poetical  attributes  and  becomes  simply 
a  great  Queen  of  Sicily,  sees  him  and  instantly  falls  in 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  IO5 

love  with  him.  To  conceal  her  passion,  she  pretends  to 
her  ladies  that  she  has  a  fever,  at  the  same  time  sending 
for  Phao,  who  is  rumoured  to  have  herbs  for  such  com- 
plaints. Meanwhile  Venus  herself  falls  a  victim  to  the 
charms  she  has  bestowed  upon  the  ferryman.  Cupid  is 
therefore  called  in  to  remedy  matters  on  her  behalf. 
The  boy,  who  plays  a  part  which  no  one  can  fail  to 
compare  with  that  of  Puck  in  the  Midsummer  Nights 
Dream,  succeeds  in  curing  Sapho's  passion,  but,  much  to 
his  mother's  disgust,  won  over  by  the  Queen's  attractions, 
refuses  to  go  further,  and  even  inspires  Phao  with  a 
loathing  for  the  goddess.  The  play  ends  with  Phao's 
departure  from  Sicily  in  despair,  and  Cupid's  definite 
rebellion  from  the  rule  of  Venus,  resulting  in  his  re- 
maining with  Sapho.  In  this  story,  which  is  practically 
a  creation  of  Lyly's  brain,  though  of  course  it  is  founded 
upon  the  classical  tale  of  Sapho's  love  for  Phao,  our 
playwright  presents  under  the  form  of  allegory  the 
history  of  Alencon's  courtship  of  Elizabeth.  Sapho, 
Queen  of  Sicily,  is  of  course  Elizabeth,  Queen  of  England. 
The  difficulty  of  Alencon's  (that  is  Phao's)  ugliness  is 
overcome  by  the  device  of  making  it  love's  task  to 
confer  beauty  upon  him.  Phao  like  Alen^on  quits  the 
island  and  its  Queen  in  despair ;  while  the  play  is 
rounded  off  by  the  pretty  compliment  of  representing 
love  as  a  willing  captive  in  Elizabeth's  Court. 

As  a  play  Sapho  and  Phao  shows  a  distinct  advance 
upon  Campaspe.  The  dialogue  is  less  euphuistic,  and 
therefore  much  more  effective.  The  conversation  be- 
tween Sapho  and  Phao,  in  the  scene  where  the  latter 
comes  with  his  herbs  to  cure  the  Queen,  is  very  charming, 
and  well  expresses  the  passion  which  the  one  is  too 
humble  and  the  other  too  proud  to  show. 


io6 


JOHN   LYLY 


PHAO.       I  know  no  hearb  to  make  lovers  sleepe  but 

Heartesease,  which  because  it  groweth 

so  high,  I  cannot  reach  :  for — 
SAPHO.     For  whom  ? 
PHAO.       For  such  as  love. 
SAPHO.     It  groweth  very  low,  and  I  can  never  stoop 

to  it,  that— 
PHAO.       That  what  ? 
SAPHO.     That   I  may  gather  it :    but  why  doe  you 

sigh  so,  Phao  ? 

PHAO.       It  is  mine  use  Madame. 
SAPHO.     It  will  doe  you  harme  and  mee  too :  for  I 

never  heare  one  sighe,  but  I  must  sigh't 

also. 
PHAO.       It  were  best  then  that  your  Ladyship  give 

me  leave  to  be  gone :  for  I  can  but  sigh. 
SAPHO.     Nay  stay :    for  now  I    beginne  to  sighe,  I 

shall    not   leave   though  you    be    gone. 

But  what  do  you  thinke  best  for  your 

sighing  to  take  it  away  ? 
PHAO.       Yew,  Madame. 
SAPHO.     Mee  ? 

PHAO.       No  Madame,  yewe  of  the  tree. 
SAPHO.     Then    will    I    love    yewe   the   better,   and 

indeed  I  think  it  should  make  me  sleepe 

too,  therefore  all  other  simples  set  aside, 

I  will  simply  use  onely  yewe. 
PHAO.       Doe  Madame  :  for  I  think  nothing  in  the 

world  so  good  as  yewe1. 

Altogether  there  is  a  great  increase  in  general  vitality 
in  this  play.  Lyly  draws  nearer  to  the  conception  of 
ideal  comedy.  "  Our  interest,"  he  tells  us  in  his  Pro- 
logue, "was  at  this  time  to  move  inward  delight  not 

1  Sapho  and  Phao,  Act  ill.  Sc.  iv.  60-85. 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  IO/ 

outward  lightnesse,  and  to  breede  (if  it  might  be)  soft 
smiling,  not  loud  laughing";  and  to  this  end  he  tends 
to  minimize  the  purely  farcical  element.  The  pages  are 
still  present,  but  they  are  balanced  by  a  group  of 
Sapho's  maids-in-vvaiting  who  discuss  the  subject  of  love 
upon  the  stage  with  great  frankness  and  charm.  Mileta, 
the  leader  of  this  chorus,  is,  we  may  suspect,  a  portrait 
drawn  from  life  ;  she  is  certainly  much  more  convincing 
than  the  somewhat  shadowy  Campaspe.  The  figures  in 
Lyly's  studio  are  limited  in  number — Camilla,  Lucilla, 
Campaspe,  Mileta,  all  come  from  the  same  mould :  in 
Pandion  we  may  discover  Euphues  under  a  new  name, 
and  the  surly  Vulcan  is  only  another  edition  of  the 
"crabbed  Diogenes."  And  yet  each  of  these  types 
becomes  more  life-like  as  he  proceeds,  and  if  the  puppets 
that  he  left  to  his  successors  were  not  yet  human,  they 
had  learnt  to  walk  the  stage  without  that  angularity  of 
movement  and  jerkiness  of  speech  which  betray  the 
machine. 

Departing  for  a  moment  from  the  strictly  chrono- 
logical order,  and  leaving  Gallathea  for  later  treatment, 
we  pass  on  to  Endymion,  the  second  of  the  allegorical 
dramas,  and,  without  doubt,  the  boldest  in  conception 
and  the  most  beautiful  in  execution  of  all  Lyly's  plays. 
The  story  is  founded  upon  the  classical  fable  of  Diana's 
kiss  to  the  sleeping  boy,  but  its  arrangement  and  de- 
velopment are  for  the  most  part  of  Lyly's  invention  : 
indeed,  he  was  obliged  to  frame  it  in  accordance  with 
the  facts  which  he  sought  to  allegorize.  All  critics  are 
agreed  in  identifying  Cynthia  with  Elizabeth  and  En- 
dymion  with  Leicester,  but  they  part  company  upon  the 
interpretation  of  the  play  as  a  whole.  The  story  is 
briefly  as  follows.  Endymion,  forsaking  his  former  love 
Tellus,  contracts  an  ardent  passion  for  Cynthia,  who,  in 


108  JOHN   LYLY 

accordance  with  her  character  as  moon-goddess,  meets 
his  advances  with  coolness.  Tellus  determines  to  be 
revenged,  and,  by  the  aid  of  a  sorceress  Dipsas,  sends 
the  youth  into  a  deep  sleep  from  which  no  one  can 
awaken  him.  Cynthia  learns  what  has  befallen,  and 
although  she  does  not  suspect  Tellus,  she  orders  the 
latter  to  be  shut  up  in  a  castle  for  speaking  maliciously 
of  Endymion.  She  then  sends  Eumenides,  the  young 
man's  great  friend,  to  seek  out  a  remedy.  This  man  is 
deeply  in  love  with  Semele,  who  scorns  his  passion,  and 
therefore,  when  he  reaches  a  magic  fountain  which  will 
answer  any  question  put  to  it,  he  is  so  absorbed  with  his 
own  troubles  as  almost  to  forget  those  of  his  friend. 
A  carefully  thought-out  piece  of  writing  follows,  for  he 
debates  with  himself  whether  to  use  his  one  question  for 
an  enquiry  about  his  love  or  his  sleeping  friend.  Friend- 
ship and  duty  conquer  at  length,  and,  looking  into  the 
well,  he  discovers  that  the  remedy  for  Endymion's  sick- 
ness is  a  kiss  from  Cynthia's  lips.  He  returns  with  his 
message,  the  kiss  is  given,  Endymion,  grown  old  after 
40  years'  sleep,  is  restored  to  youth,  the  treachery  of 
Tellus  is  discovered  and  eventually  forgiven,  and  the 
play  ends  amid  a  peal  of  marriage  bells.  Endymion, 
however,  is  left  unmarried,  knowing  as  he  does  that 
lowly  and  distant  worship  is  all  he  can  be  allowed  to 
offer  the  virgin  goddess.  The  play,  of  course,  has  a 
farcical  underplot  which  is  only  connected  very  slightly 
with  the  main  story  by  Sir  Tophas'  ridiculous  passion 
for  Dipsas.  His  love  in  fact  is  presented  as  a  kind  of 
caricature  of  Endymion's,  and  he  is  the  laughing-stock 
of  a  number  of  pages  who  gambol  and  play  pranks  after 
the  usual  manner  of  Lyly's  boys.  The  solution  of  the 
allegory  lies  mainly  in  the  interpretation  of  Tellus' 
character,  and  I  cannot  but  agree  with  Mr  Bond  when 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  IOQ 

he  decides  that  Tellus  is  Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  He  is 
perhaps  less  convincing  where  he  pairs  Endymion  with 
Sidney,  and  Semele  with  Penelope  Devereux,  the  famous 
Stella.  Lastly  we  may  notice  his  suggestion  that  Tophas 
may  be  Gabriel  Harvey,  which  certainly  appears  to  be 
more  probable  than  Halpin's  theory  that  Stephen  Gosson 
is  here  meant1.  But  the  whole  question  is  one  of  such 
obscurity,  and  of  so  little  importance  from  the  point  of 
view  of  my  argument,  that  I  shall  not  attempt  to  enter 
further  into  it. 

In  Endymion  Lyly  shows  that  his  mastership  of 
St  Paul's  has  increased  his  knowledge  of  stage-craft. 
For  example,  while  Campaspe  contains  at  least  four 
imaginary  transfers  in  space  in  the  middle  of  a  scene, 
Endymion  has  only  one :  and  it  is  a  transfer  which 
requires  a  much  smaller  stretch  of  imagination  than 
the  constant  appearance  of  Diogenes'  tub  upon  the 
stage  whenever  and  wherever  comic  relief  was  con- 

o 

sidered  necessary.  There  is  improvement  moreover  in 
characterization.  But  the  interesting  thing  about  this 
play  is  Shakespeare's  intimate  knowledge  of  it,  visible 
chiefly  in  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream.  The  well- 
known  speech  of  Oberon  to  Puck,  directing  him  to 
gather  the  "  little  western  flower,"  is  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  a  beautiful  condensation  of  Lyly's  allegory. 
One  would  like,  indeed,  to  think  that  there  was  some- 
thing more  than  fancy  in  Mr  Gollancz's  suggestion  that 
Shakespeare  when  a  boy  had  seen  this  play  of  Lyly's 
acted  at  Kenilworth,  where  Leicester  entertained  Eliza- 
beth ;  little  William  going  thither  with  his  father  from 
the  neighbouring  town  of  Stratford.  But  however  that 
may  be,  Endymion  certainly  had  a  peculiar  fascination 
for  him ;  we  may  even  detect  borrowings  from  the 

1  Halpin,  Oberon's  Vision,  Shakespeare  Society,  1843. 


110  JOHN    LYLY 

underplot.  Tophas'  enumeration  of  the  charms  of 
Dipsas1  foreshadows  Thisbe's  speech  over  the  fallen 
Pyramus2,  while,  did  we  not  know  Lyly's  play  to  be  the 
earlier,  we  might  suspect  the  page's  song  near  the  sleep- 
ing knight  to  be  a  clumsy  caricature  of  the  graceful 
songs  of  the  fairies  guarding  Titania's  dreams.  Again 
there  are  parallels  in  Shakespeare's  earliest  comedy 
Love's  Labour's  Lost.  Sir  Tophas,  who  is  undoubtedly 
modelled  upon  Roister  Doister,  reappears  with  his  page, 
as  Armado  with  his  attendant  Moth.  And  I  have  no 
doubt  that  many  other  resemblances  might  be  dis- 
covered by  careful  investigation.  We  cannot  wonder 
that  Endymion  attracted  Shakespeare,  for  it  is  the 
most  "  romantic  "  of  all  Lyly's  plays.  Indistinctness  of 
character  seems  to  be  in  keeping  with  an  allegory  of 
moonshine ;  and  even  the  mechanical  action  cannot 
spoil  the  poetical  atmosphere  which  pervades  the  whole. 
Here  if  anywhere  Lyly  reached  the  poetical  plane.  He 
speaks  of  "  thoughts  stitched  to  the  starres,"  of  "  time 
that  treadeth  all  things  down  but  truth,"  of  the  "  ivy 
which,  though  it  climb  up  by  the  elme,  can  never  get 
hold  of  the  beames  of  the  sunne,"  and  the  play  is  full  of 
many  other  quaint  poetical  conceits. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  drama,  however,  it  cannot 
be  considered  equal  to  the  third  of  the  allegorical  plays. 
As  a  man  of  fashion  Lyly  was  nothing  if  not  up  to  date. 
In  August  1588  the  great  Armada  had  made  its  abortive 
attack  upon  Cynthia's  kingdom,  and  twelve  months  were 
scarcely  gone  before  the  industrious  Court  dramatist  had 
written  and  produced  on  the  stage  an  allegorical  satire 
upon  his  Catholic  Majesty  Philip,  King  of  Spain.  Though 
it  contains  compliments  to  Elizabeth,  Midas  is  more  of 

1  Endymion,  Act  in.  Sc.  n.  11.  30-60. 

2  Cp.  also  Shakespeare,  Sonnet  cxxx. 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  III 

a  patriotic  than  a  purely  Court  play.  The  story,  with 
but  a  few  necessary  alterations,  comes  from  Ovid's 
Metamorphoses^.  It  is  the  old  tale  of  the  three  wishes. 
Love,  power,  and  wealth  are  offered,  and  Midas  chooses 
the  last.  But  he  soon  finds  that  the  gift  of  turning 
everything  to  gold  has  its  drawbacks.  Even  his  beard 
accidentally  becomes  bullion.  He  eventually  gets  rid 
of  his  obnoxious  power  by  bathing  in  a  river.  The 
fault  of  the  play  is  that  there  are,  as  it  were,  two  sections ; 
for  now  we  are  introduced  to  an  entirely  new  situation. 
The  King  chances  upon  Apollo  and  Pan  engaged  in  a 
musical  contest,  and,  asked  to  decide  between  them, 
gives  his  verdict  for  the  goat-foot  god.  Apollo,  in 
revenge,  endows  him  with  a  pair  of  ass's  ears.  For 
some  time  he  manages  to  conceal  them  ;  but  "  murder 
will  out,"  for  the  reeds  breathe  the  secret  to  the  wind. 
Midas  in  the  end  seeks  pardon  at  Apollo's  shrine,  and  is 
relieved  of  his  ears.  At  the  same  time  he  abandons  his 
project  of  invading  the  neighbouring  island  of  Lesbos, 
to  which  continual  references  are  made  throughout  the 
play.  This  island  is  of  course  England  ;  the  golden 
touch  refers  to  the  wealth  of  Spanish  America,  while, 
if  Halpin  be  correct,  Pan  and  Apollo  signify  the  Catholic 
and  the  Protestant  faith  respectively.  We  may  also  notice, 
in  passing,  that  the  ears  obviously  gave  Shakespeare  the 
idea  of  Bottom's  "  transfiguration." 

The  weakness  of  the  play,  as  I  have  said,  lies  in  its 
duality  of  action.  In  other  respects,  however,  it  is  cer- 
tainly a  great  advance  on  its  predecessors,  especially  in 
its  underplot,  which  is  for  the  first  time  connected  satis- 
factorily with  the  main  argument.  Motto,  the  royal 
barber,  in  the  course  of  his  duties,  obtains  possession 
of  the  golden  beard  :  and  the  history  of  this  somewhat 
1  xi.  85-193. 


112  JOHN    LYLY 

unusual  form  of  treasure  affords  a  certain  amount  of 
amusing  farcical  relief.  It  is  stolen  by  one  of  the  Court 
pages,  Motto  recovers  it  as  a  reward  for  curing  the  thief's 
toothache,  but  he  loses  it  again  because,  being  overheard 
hinting  at  the  ass's  ears,  he  is  convicted  of  treason  by 
the  pages,  and  is  blackmailed  in  consequence.  From 
this  it  will  be  seen  that  the  underplot  is  more  embroi- 
dered with  incident  and  is,  in  every  way,  better  arranged 
than  in  the  earlier  plays. 

We  must  now  turn  to  the  pastoral  plays,  GallatJica, 
TJte  Woman  in  the  Moon,  and  Love's  Metamorphosis, 
which  we  may  consider  together  since  their  stories, 
uninspired  by  any  allegorical  purpose  beyond  general 
compliments  to  the  Queen,  do  not  require  any  detailed 
consideration.  And  yet  it  should  be  pointed  out  that 
this  distinction  between  Lyly's  allegorical  and  pastoral 
plays  is  more  apparent  than  real.  There  are  shepherds 
in  Midas,  the  Queen  appears  under  the  mythological 
title  of  Ceres  in  Love's  Metamorphosis.  Such  overlapping 
however  is  only  to  be  expected,  and  the  division  is  at 
least  very  convenient  for  purposes  of  classification. 
Lyly's  pastoral  plays  form,  as  it  were,  a  link  between 
the  drama  and  the  masque  ;  indeed,  when  we  consider 
that  all  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  were  students  of 
Lyly,  it  is  possible  that  comedy  and  masque  may  have 
been  evolved  from  the  Lylian  mythological  play  by  a 
process  of  differentiation.  It  may  be  that  our  author 
increased  the  pastoral  element  as  the  arcadian  fashion 
came  into  vogue,  but  this  argument  does  not  hold  of 
Gallathea,  while  we  are  uncertain  as  to  the  date  of  Loves 
Metamorphosis.  None  of  these  plays  are  worth  consider- 
ing in  detail,  but  each  has  its  own  particular  point  of 
interest.  In  Gallathea  this  is  the  introduction  of  girls 
in  boys'  clothes.  As  far  as  I  know,  Lyly  is  the  first  to 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  113 

use  the  convenient  dramatic  device  of  disguise.  How 
effective  a  trick  it  was,  is  proved  by  the  manner  in  which 
later  dramatists,  and  in  particular  Shakespeare,  adopted 
it.  Its  full  significance  cannot  be  appreciated  by  us  to- 
day, for  the  whole  point  of  it  was  that  the  actors,  who 
appeared  as  girls  dressed  up  as  boys,  were,  as  the  audience 
knew,  really  boys  themselves  ;  a  fact  which  doubtless 
increased  the  funniness  of  the  situation.  The  Woman  in 
the  Moon  gives  us  a  man  disguised  in  his  wife's  clothes, 
which  is  a  variation  of  the  same  trick.  But  the  import- 
ance of  The  Woman  lies  in  its  poetical  form.  Most 
Elizabethan  scholars  have  decided  that  this  play  was 
Lyly's  first  dramatic  effort,  on  the  authority  of  the 
Prologue,  which  bids  the  audience 

"  Remember  all  is  but  a  poet's  dream, 
The  first  he  had  in  Phoebus'  holy  bower, 
But  not  the  last,  unless  the  first  displease." 

But  the  maturity  and  strength  of  the  drama  argue  a 
fairly  considerable  experience  in  its  author,  and  we  shall 
therefore  be  probably  more  correct  if  we  place  it  last  in- 
stead of  first  of  Lyly's  plays,  interpreting  the  words  of 
the  Prologue  as  simply  implying  that  it  was  Lyly's  first 
experiment  in  blank  verse,  inspired  possibly  by  the 
example  of  Marlowe  in  Tamburlaine  and  of  Shakespeare 
in  Loves  Labours  Lost1.  But,  whatever  its  date,  The 
Woman  in  the  Moon  must  rank  among  the  earliest 
examples  of  blank  verse  in  our  language,  and,  as  such, 
its  importance  is  very  great.  In  Loves  Metamorphosis 
there  is  nothing  of  interest  equal  to  those  points  we  have 
noticed  in  the  other  two  plays  of  the  same  class.  The 
only  remarkable  thing,  indeed,  about  it  is  the  absence  of 
that  farcical  under-current  which  appears  in  all  his  other 

1  Bond,  in.  p.  234. 
w.  8 


114  JOHN    LYLY 

plays.  Mr  Bond  suggests,  with  great  plausibility,  that 
such  an  element  had  originally  appeared,  but  that,  be- 
cause it  dealt  with  dangerous  questions  of  the  time, 
perhaps  with  the  Marprelatc  controversy,  it  was  ex- 
punged. 

It  now  remains  to  say  a  few  words  upon  Mother 
Bombie,  which  forms  the  fourth  division  of  Lyly's 
dramatic  writings.  Though  it  presents  many  points 
of  similarity  in  detail  to  his  other  plays,  its  general 
atmosphere  is  so  different  (displaying,  indeed,  at  times 
distinct  errors  of  taste)  that  I  should  be  inclined  to  assign 
it  to  a  friend  or  pupil  of  Lyly,  were  it  not  bound  up  with 
Blount's  Sixe  Court  Comedies*,  and  therein  said  to  be 
written  by  "  the  onely  Rare  Poet  of  that  time,  the  \vittie( 
comical,  facetiously  quicke,  and  unparalleled  John  Lilly 
master  of  arts."  It  is  clever  in  construction,  but  un- 
deniably tedious.  It  shows  that  Lyly  had  learnt  much 
from  Udall,  Stevenson,  and  Gascoigne,  and  perhaps  its 
chief  point  of  interest  is  that  it  links  these  writers  to  the 
later  realists,  Ben  Jonson,  and  that  student  of  London 
life,  who  is  surely  one  of  the  most  charming  of  all  the 
Elizabethan  dramatists,  whimsical  and  delightful  Thomas 
Dekker.  Mother  Bombie  was  an  experiment  in  the  drama 
of  realism,  the  realism  that  Nash  was  employing  so 
successfully  in  his  novels.  It  has  been  labelled  as  our 
earliest  pure  farce  of  well-constructed  plot  and  literary 
form,  but,  though  it  is  certainly  on  a  much  higher  plane 
than  Roister  Doister,  it  would  only  create  confusion  if 
we  denied  that  title  to  Udall's  play.  Yet,  despite  its 
comparative  unimportance,  and  although  it  is  evident 
that  Lyly  is  here  out  of  his  natural  element,  Mother 
Bombie  is  interesting  as  showing  the  (to  our  ideas)  extra- 
ordinary confusion  of  artistic  ideals  which,  as  I  have 

1  For  title-page,  Bond,  III.  p.  i,  date  1632. 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  115 

already  noticed,  is  the  remarkable  thing  about  the 
Renaissance  in  England.  Here  we  have  a  courtier,  a 
writer  of  allegories,  of  dream-plays,  the  first  of  our 
mighty  line  of  romanticists,  producing  a  somewhat 
vulgar  realistic  play  of  rustic  life.  There  is  nothing 
anomalous  in  this.  "  Violence  and  variation,"  which 
someone  has  described  as  the  two  essentials  of  the  ideal 
life,  were  certainly  the  distinguishing  marks  of  the  New 
Birth ;  and  the  men  of  that  age  demanded  it  in  their 
literature.  The  drama  of  horror,  the  drama  of  insanity, 
the  drama  of  blood,  all  were  found  on  the  Elizabethan 
stage,  and  all  attracted  large  audiences.  People  delighted 
to  read  accounts  of  contemporary  crime ;  often  these 
choice  morsels  were  dished  up  for  them  by  some  famous 
writer,  as  Kyd  did  in  The  Murder  of  John  Brewer.  The 
taste  for  realism  is  by  no  means  a  purely  iQth  century 
product.  Moreover,  the  Elizabethans  soon  wearied 
of  sameness  ;  only  a  writer  of  the  greatest  versatility, 
such  as  Shakespeare,  could  hope  for  success,  or  at  least 
financial  success ;  and  it  was,  perhaps,  in  order  to 
revive  his  waning  popularity  that  Lyly  took  to  realism. 
But  the  child  of  fashion  is  always  the  earliest  to 
become  out  of  date,  and  we  cannot  think  that  Mother 
Bombie  did  much  towards  improving  our  author's  re- 
putation. 

At  this  point  of  our  enquiry  it  will  be  as  well  to  say 
a  few  words  upon  the  lyrics  which  Lyly  sprinkled  broad- 
cast over  his  plays.  From  an  aesthetic  point  of  view 
these  are  superior  to  anything  else  he  wrote.  "  Fore- 
shortened in  the  tract  of  time,"  his  novel,  his  plays,  have 
become  forgotten,  and  it  is  as  the  author  of  Cupid  and 
my  Campaspe  played  that  he  is  alone  known  to  the  lover 
of  literature  There  is  no  need  to  enter  into  an  investi- 
gation of  the  numerous  anonymous  poems  which  Mr  Bond 

8—2 


Il6  JOHN   LYLY 

has  claimed  for  him1;  even  if  we  knew  for  certain  that 
he  was  their  author,  they  are  so  mediocre  in  themselves 
as  to  be  unworthy  of  notice,  scarcely  I  think  of  recovery. 
But  let  us  turn  to  the  songs  of  his  dramas,  of  which  there 
are  32  in  all.  These  are,  of  course,  unequal  in  merit,  but 
the  best  are  worthy  to  be  ranked  with  Shakespeare's 
lyrics,  and  our  greatest  dramatist  was  only  following 
Lyly's  example  when  he  introduced  lyrics  into  his  plays. 
I  have  already  pointed  out  that  music  was  an  important 
element  in  our  early  comedy.  Udall  had  introduced 
songs  into  his  Roister  Doister,  and  we  have  them  also  in 
Gammer  Gurton  and  Damon  and  Pithias,  but  never,  be- 
fore Lyly's  day,  had  they  taken  so  prominent  a  part  in 
drama,  for  no  previous  dramatist  had  possessed  a  tithe 
of  Lyly's  lyrical  genius.  Every  condition  favoured  our 
author  in  this  introduction  of  songs  into  his  plays.  He 
had  tradition  at  his  back  ;  he  was  intensely  interested  in 
music,  and  probably  composed  the  airs  himself;  and 
lastly  he  was  master  of  a  choir  school,  and  would 
therefore  use  every  opportunity  for  displaying  his  pupils' 
voices  on  the  stage.  Too  much  stress,  however,  must 
not  be  laid  upon  this  last  condition,  because  Lyly  had 
already  written  three  songs  for  Campaspe  and  four  for 
Sapho  arid  Phao  before  he  became  connected  with 
St  Paul's,  a  fact  which  points  again  to  de  Vere,  himself 
a  lyrist  of  considerable  powers,  as  Lyly's  adviser  and 
master.  Doubts,  indeed,  have  been  cast  upon  Lyly's 
authorship  of  these  lyrics  on  the  ground  that  they  are 
omitted  from  the  first  edition  of  the  plays.  But  we  need, 
I  think,  have  no  hesitation  in  accepting  Lyly  as  their 
creator,  since  the  omission  in  question  is  fully  accounted 
for  by  the  fact  that  they  were  probably  written  separately 
from  the  plays,  and  handed  round  amongst  the  boys 

1  Bond,  in.  p.  433. 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  1 1/ 

together  with  the  musical  score1.  These  songs  are  of 
various  kinds  and  of  widely  different  value.  We  have, 
for  example,  the  purely  comic  poem,  probably  accom- 
panied by  gesture  and  pantomime,  such  as  the  song  of 
Petulus  from  Midas,  beginning,  "  O  my  Teeth !  deare 
Barber  ease  me,"  with  interruptions  and  refrains  supplied 
by  his  companion  and  the  scornful  Motto.  Many  of 
these  songs,  indeed,  are  cast  into  dialogue  form,  some- 
times each  page  singing  a  verse  by  himself,  as  in  "  O  for 
a  Bowie  of  fatt  canary."  This  last  is  the  earliest  of 
Lyly's  wine-songs,  which  for  swing  and  vigour  are  among 
some  of  the  best  in  our  language,  reminding  us  irresistibly 
of  those  pagan  chants  of  the  mediaeval  wandering  scholar 
which  the  late  Mr  Symonds  has  collected  for  us  in  his 
Wine,  Woman,  and  Song.  The  drinking  song,  "  lo 
Bacchus,"  which  occurs  in  Mother  Bombie,  is  undoubt- 
edly, I  think,  modelled  on  one  of  these  earlier  student 
compositions ;  the  reference  to  the  practice  of  throwing 
hats  into  the  fire  is  alone  sufficient  to  suggest  it.  But  it 
is  as  a  writer  of  the  lyric  proper  that  Lyly  is  best  known. 
No  one  but  Herrick,  perhaps,  has  given  us  more  graceful 
love  trifles  woven  about  some  classical  conceit.  Mr 
Palgrave  has  familiarized  us  with  the  best,  Cupid  and 
my  Campaspe  played,  but  there  are  others  only  less 
charming  than  this.  The  same  theme  is  employed  in 
the  following : 

' '  O  Cupid !    Monarch  over  Kings ! 
Wherefore  hast  thou  feet  and  wings  ? 
Is  it  to  show  how  swift  thou  art, 
When  thou  would'st  wound  a  tender  heart  ? 
Thy  wings  being  clipped,  and  feet  held  still, 
Thy  bow  so  many  would  not  kill. 
It  is  all  one  in  Venus'  wanton  school 
Who  highest  sits,  the  wise  man  or  the  fool  ! 

1  Bond,  I.  p.  36,  II.  p.  265. 


118  JOHN    LYLY 

Fools  in  love's  college 

Have  far  more  knowledge 
To  read  a  woman  over, 
Than  a  neat  prating  lover. 

Nay,  'tis  confessed 
That  fools  please  women  best x !  " 

Another  quotation  must  be  permitted.  This  time  it  is 
no  embroidered  conceit,  but  one  of  those  lyrics  of  pure 
nature  music,  of  which  the  Renaissance  poets  were  so 
lavish,  touched  with  the  fire  of  Spring,  with  the  light  of 
hope,  bird-notes  untroubled  by  doubt,  unconscious  of 
pessimism,  which  are  therefore  all  the  more  charming 
for  us  who  dwell  amid  sunsets  of  intense  colouring,  who 
can  see  nothing  but  the  hectic  splendours  of  autumn. 
For  the  melancholy  nightingale  the  poet  has  surprise 
and  admiration,  no  sympathy: 

"What  Bird  so  sings,  yet  so  does  wail? 
O  'tis  the  ravished  Nightingale. 
JUS>  Jug>  Jug>  JUS>  tereu,  she  cries, 
And  still  her  woes  at  Midnight  rise. 
Brave  prick  song!   who  is't  now  we  hear? 
None  but  the  lark  so  shrill  and  clear; 
Now  at  heaven's  gates  she  claps  her  wings, 
The  Morn  not  waking  till  she  sings. 
Hark,  hark,  with  what  a  pretty  throat 
Poor  Robin-red-breast  tunes  his  note. 
Hark  how  the  jolly  cuckoos  sing 
'  Cuckoo '  to  welcome  in  the  spring, 
'Cuckoo'  to 'welcome  in  the  spring2." 

This  delightful  song  comes  from  the  first  of  Lyly's 
dramas,  and  few  even  of  Shakespeare's  lyrics  can 
equal  it.  Indeed,  coming  as  it  does  at  the  dawn  of  the 
Elizabethan  era,  it  seems  like  the  cuckoo  herself  "to 
welcome  in  the  spring." 

1  Mother  Bombie,  Act  in.  Sc.  in.  1-14. 

2  Campaspe,  Act  v.  Sc.  I.  32-44.     I  have  modernised  the  spelling. 


LYLY  THE   DRAMATIST  119 

SECTION   III.     Lylfs  dramatic  Genius  and  Influence. 

Having  thus  very  briefly  passed  in  review  the  various 
plays  that  Lyly  bequeathed  to  posterity1,  we  must  say 
a  few  words  in  conclusion  on  their  main  characteristics, 
the  advance  they  made  upon  their  predecessors,  and 
their  influence  on  later  drama. 

In  Lyly,  it  is  worth  noticing,  England  has  her  first 
professional  dramatist.  Unlike  those  who  had  gone 
before  him  he  was  no  amateur,  he  wrote  for  his  living,  and 
he  wrote  as  one  interested  in  the  technical  side  of  the 
theatre.  They  had  played  with  drama,  producing  indeed 
interesting  experiments,  but  accomplishing  only  what 
one  would  expect  from  men  who  merely  took  a  lay 
interest  in  the  theatre,  and  who  possessed  a  certain 
knowledge,  scholastic  rather  than  technical,  of  the 
methods  of  the  classical  playwrights.  He,  having 
probably  learnt  at  Oxford  all  there  was  to  be  known 
concerning  the  drama  of  the  ancient  world,  came  to 
London,  and,  definitely  deciding  to  embark  upon  the 
dramatist's  career,  saw  and  studied  such  moralities  and 
plays  as  were  to  be  seen,  aided  and  directed  by  the 
experience  and  knowledge  of  his  patron  :  finding  in 
the  moralities,  allegory ;  in  the  plays  of  Udall  and 
Stevenson,  farce  ;  in  Damon  and  Pithias,  a  romantic  play 
upon  a  classical  theme ;  and  in  Gascoigne's  Supposes, 
brilliant  prose  dialogue.  That  he  was  induced  to  make 
such  a  study,  and  that  he  was  enabled  to  carry  it  out  so 
thoroughly,  was  due  partly,  I  think,  to  his  peculiar 
financial  position.  As  secretary  of  de  Vere,  and  later 
as  Vice-master  of  St  Paul's  School,  he  was  independent 
of  the  actual  necessity  of  bread-winning,  which  forced 

1  I  have  said  nothing  of  the  Maydes  Metamorphosis,  as  most  critics  are 
agreed  in  assigning  it  to  some  unknown  author. 


I2O  JOHN    LYLY 

even  Shakespeare  to  pander  to  the  garlic-eating  multi- 
tude he  loathed,  and  wrung  from  him  the  cry, 

"  Alas,  'tis  true  I  have  been  here  and  there 
And  made  myself  a  motley  to  the  view, 
Gored  mine  own  thoughts,  sold  cheap  what  is  most  dear  "... 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  neither  post  was  sufficiently 
remunerative  to  secure  for  him  the  comforts,  still  less 
the  luxuries,  of  life.  His  income  required  supplement- 
ing, if  only  for  the  sake  of  meeting  his  tobacco  bill, 
though  I  have  a  strong  suspicion  that  the  bills  sent  in 
to  him  served  no  more  useful  purpose  than  to  light  his 
pipe.  But,  however,  adopting  the  theatre  as  his  pro- 
fession, he  would  naturally  make  a  serious  study  of 
dramatic  art,  and,  having  no  need  for  constantly  filling 
the  maw  of  present  necessity,  he  could  undertake  such 
a  study  thoroughly  and  at  his  leisure.  And  to  this 
cause  his  peculiar  importance  in  the  history  of  the 
Elizabethan  stage  is  mainly  due.  Next  to  Jonson,  the 
most  learned  of  all  the  dramatists,  yet  possessing  little  of 
their  poetical  capacity,  he  set  them  the  most  conspicuous 
example  in  technique  and  stage- craft,  in  the  science  of 
play-writing,  which  they  would  probably  have  been  far 
too  busy  to  acquire  for  themselves.  Lyly's  eight  dramas 
formed  the  rough-hewn  but  indispensable  foundation- 
stone  of  the  Elizabethan  edifice.  Spenser  has  been 
called  the  poet's  poet,  Lyly  was  in  his  own  days  the 
playwright's  dramatist. 

Of  his  dramatic  construction  we  have  already  spoken. 
We  have  noticed  that  he  introduced  the  art  of  disguise; 
that  he  varied  his  action  by  songs,  accompanied  perhaps 
with  pantomime.  Mr  Bond  suggests  further  that  he 
probably  did  much  to  extend  the  use  of  stage  properties 
and  scenery1.  But  the  real  importance  of  his  plays  lies 

1  Bond,  II.  pp.  265-266. 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  121 

in  their  plot  construction  and  character  drawing,  points 
which  as  yet  we  have  only  touched  upon.     The  way  in 
which  he  manages  the  action  of  his  plays  shows  a  skill 
quite  unapproached  by  anything  that  had  gone  before, 
and  more  pronounced  than  that  of  many  which  came 
after.     Too  often  indeed  we  have  dialogues,  scenes,  and 
characters  which  have  no  connexion  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  story ;  but  when  we  consider  how  frequently 
Shakespeare  sinned  in   this  respect,  we  cannot  blame 
Lyly  for  introducing  a  philosophical  discussion  between 
Plato   and  Aristotle,  as   in  Campaspe,  or   those   merry 
altercations  between  his  pages  which  added  so  much 
colour  and  variety  to  his  plays.     However  many  inter- 
ruptions there  were,  he  never  allowed  his  audience  to 
forget  the  main   business,  as  Dekker,  for  example,  so 
frequently  did.     Nowhere,  again,  in    Lyly's   plays  are 
the  motives  inadequate  to  support  the  action,  as  they 
were  in  the  majority  of  dramas  previous  to  1580.     Even 
Alexander's  somewhat  tame  surrender  of  Campaspe  is 
quite  in  accordance  with  his  royal  dignity  and  magna- 
nimity; and,  moreover,  we  are  warned  in  the  third  act 
that  the  King's  love  is  slight  and  will  fade  away  at  the 
first  blast  of  the  war  trumpet,  for  as  he  tells  us  he  is 
"not  so  far  in  love  with  Campaspe  as  with  Bucephalus, 
if  occasion  serve   either   of  conflict   or   of  conquest1." 
In  Endymion  the  motives  are  perhaps   most  skilfully 
displayed,  and  lead  most  naturally  on  to  the  action,  and 
in  this  play,  also,  Lyly  is  perhaps  most  successful  in 
creating  that  dramatic  excitement  which  is  caused  by 
working    up    to    an    apparent    deadlock   (due    to    the 
intrigues  of  Tellus),  and  which  is  made  to  resolve  itself 
and  disappear  in  the  final  act.     Closely  allied  with  the 
development  of  action  by  the  presentation  of  motives 

1  Campaspe,  Act  in.  Sc.  iv.  31. 


122  JOHN    LYLY 

is  the  weaving  of  the  plot.  And  in  this  Lyly  is  not  so 
satisfactory,  though,  of  course,  far  in  advance  of  his 
predecessors.  A  steady  improvement,  however,  is  dis- 
cernible as  he  proceeds.  In  the  earlier  plays  the  page 
element  does  little  more  than  afford  comic  relief:  the 
encounters  between  Manes  and  his  friends,  and  between 
Manes  and  his  master,  can  hardly  be  dignified  by  the 
name  of  plot.  It  is  in  Midas,  as  I  have  already 
suggested,  that  this  farcical  under-current  displays  inci- 
dent and  action  of  its  own,  turning  as  it  does  upon  the 
relations  of  the  pages  with  Motto  and  the  theft  of  the 
beard.  Here  again  the  comic  scenes,  now  connected 
together  for  the  first  time,  are  also  united  with  the  main 
story.  But  the  page  element  by  no  means  represents 
Lyly's  only  attempt  at  creating  an  underplot.  It  will 
be  seen  from  the  story  of  Endymion  related  above  that 
in  that  play  our  author  is  not  contented  with  a  single 
passion-nexus,  if  the  expression  may  be  allowed,  that  of 
Tellus,  Cynthia,  and  Endymion,  but  he  gives  us  another, 
that  of  Eumenides  and  Semele,  which  has  no  real  con- 
nexion with  the  action,  but  which  seriously  threatens  to 
interrupt  it  at  one  point.  Other  interests  are  hinted  at, 
rather  than  developed,  by  the  infatuation  of  Sir  Tophas 
for  Dipsas,  and  by  the  history  of  the  latter's  husband. 
Though  Midas  is  more  advanced  in  other  ways,  it 
displays  nothing  like  the  complexity  of  Endymion,  and 
it  is  moreover,  as  I  have  said,  cut  in  two  by  the  want  of 
connexion  between  the  incident  of  the  golden  touch 
and  that  of  the  ass's  ears.  Lastly,  in  Love's  Meta- 
morphosis, which  is  without  the  element  of  farce,  the  re- 
lations between  the  nymphs  and  the  shepherds  complete 
that  underplot  of  passion  which  is  hinted  at  in  Sapho^ 
in  the  evident  fancy  which  Mileta  shows  for  Phao,  and 
developed  as  we  have  just  noticed  in  Endymion. 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  123 

In  this  plot  construction  and  interweaving,  Lyly  had 
no  models  except  the  classics,  and  we  may,  therefore, 
say  that  his  work  in  this  direction  was  almost  entirely 
original.  The  last-mentioned  play  was  produced  at 
Court  some  time  before  1590,  and  we  cannot  doubt,  was 
attended  by  our  greatest  dramatist.  At  any  rate  the 
lessons  which  Shakespeare  learnt  from  Lyly  in  the 
matter  of  plot  complication  are  visible  in  the  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream,  which  was  produced  in  I5951.  The  in- 
tricate mechanism  of  this  play,  reminding  us  with  its 
four  plots  (the  Duke  and  Hippolyta,  the  lovers,  the 
mechanics,  and  the  fairies)  of  the  miracle  with  its  im- 
posing but  unimportant  divinities  in  the  Rood  gallery,  its 
main  stage  whereon  moved  human  characters,  its  Crypt 
supplying  the  rude  comic  element  in  the  shape  of  devils, 
and  its  angels  who  moved  from  one  level  to  another 
welding  the  whole  together,  was  far  beyond  Lyly's 
powers,  but  it  was  only  possible  even  for  Shakespeare 
after  a  thorough  study  of  Lyly's  methods. 

As  I  have  previously  pointed  out,  Lyly  was  not  very 
successful  in  the  matter  of  character  drawing.  Never, 
even  for  a  moment,  is  passion  allowed  to  disturb  the 
cultured  placidity  of  the  dialogue.  The  conditions  under 
which  his  plays  were  produced  may  in  part  account  for 
this.  The  children  of  Paul's  could  hardly  be  expected 
to  display  much  light  and  shade  of  emotion  in  their 
acting,  certainly  depth  of  passion  was  beyond  their 
scope.  But  the  fault,  I  think,  lies  rather  in  the  dramatist 
than  in  the  actors.  Lyly's  mind  was  in  all  probability 
altogether  of  too  superficial  a  nature  for  a  sympathetic 
analysis  of  the  human  soul.  That  at  least  is  how  I  in- 
terpret his  character.  All  his  work  was  more  "  art  than 
nature,"  some  of  it  was  "  more  labour  than  art."  On  the 

1  Sidney  Lee,  Life,  p.  151. 


124  JOHN    LYLY 

technical  side  his  dramatic  advance  is  immense,  but  we 
may  look  in  vain  in  his  dramas  for  any  of  that  apprecia- 
tion of  the  elemental  facts  of  human  nature  which  can 
alone  create  enduring  art.  In  their  characterization, 
Lyly's  plays  do  little  more  than  form  a  link  between 
Shakespeare  and  the  old  morality.  This  comes  out  most 
strongly  in  their  peculiar  method  of  character  grouping. 
By  a  very  natural  process  the  moral  type  is  split  up  with 
the  intention  of  giving  it  life  and  variety.  Thus  we  have 
those  groups  of  pages,  of  maids-in-\vaiting,  of  shepherds, 
of  deities,  etc.,  which  are  so  characteristic  of  Lyly's  plays. 
There  is  no  real  distinction  between  page  and  page,  and 
between  nymph  and  nymph  ;  but  their  merry  conversa- 
tions give  a  piquancy  and  colour  to  the  drama  which 
make  up  for,  and  in  part  conceal,  the  absence  of  character. 
All  that  was  necessary  for  the  creation  of  character  was 
to  fit  these  pieces  of  the  moral  type  together  again  in  a 
different  way,  and  to  breathe  the  spirit  of  genius  into 
the  new  creation.  We  can  see  Lyly  feeling  towards  this 
solution  of  the  problem  in  his  portrayal  of  Gunophilus, 
the  clown  of  The  Woman  in  the  Moon.  This  character, 
which  anticipates  the  immortal  clowns  of  Shakespeare, 
is  formed  by  an  amalgamation  of  the  pages  in  the 
previous  plays  into  one  comic  figure.  But  Lyly  also 
attempts  to  create  single  figures,  in  addition  to  these 
group  characters  which  for  the  most  part  have  little  to 
do  with  the  action.  Often  he  helps  out  his  poverty  of 
invention  by  placing  descriptions  of  one  character  in  the 
mouth  of  another.  "  How  stately  she  passeth  bye,  yet 
how  soberly  !  "  exclaims  Alexander  watching  Campaspe 
at  a  distance,  "  a  sweet  consent  in  her  countenance  with 
a  chaste  disdaine,  desire  mingled  with  coyness,  and  I  can- 
not tell  how  to  tearme  it,  a  curst  yeelding  modestie !  " — 
an  excellent  piece  of  description,  and  one  which  is  very 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  12$ 

necessary  for  the  animation  of  the  shadowy  Campaspe. 
At  times  however  Lyly  can  dispense  with  such  adven- 
titious aids.  Pipenetta,  the  fascinating  little  wench  in 
Midas  and  one  of  our  dramatist's  most  successful  crea- 
tions, needs  no  other  illumination  than  her  own  pert 
speeches.  Diogenes  again  is  an  effective  piece  of  work. 
But  both  these  are  minor  characters  who  therefore  receive 
no  development,  and  if  we  look  at  the  more  important 
personages  of  Lyly's  portrait  gallery,  we  must  agree 
with  Mr  Bond1  that  Tellus  is  the  best.  She  is  a  character 
which  exhibits  considerable  development,  and  she  is  also 
Lyly's  only  attempt  to  embody  the  evil  principle  in 
woman — a  hint  for  the  construction  of  that  marvellous 
portrait  of  another  Scottish  queen,  the  Lady  Macbeth, 
which  Lyly  just  before  his  death  in  1606  may  have  seen 
upon  the  stage. 

On  the  whole  Lyly  is  most  successful  when  he  is 
drawing  women,  which  was  only  as  it  should  be,  if  we 
allow  that  the  feminine  element  is  the  very  pivot  of  true 
comedy.  This  he  saw,  and  it  is  because  he  was  the  first 
to  realise  it  and  to  grapple  with  the  difficulties  it  entailed 
that  the  title  of  father  of  English  comedy  may  be  given 
him  without  the  least  reserve  or  hesitation.  Sapho  the 
haughty  but  amorous  queen,  Mileta  the  mocking  but 
tender  Court  lady,  Gallathea  the  shy  provincial  lass,  and 
Pipenetta  the  saucy  little  maid-servant,  fill  our  stage  for 
the  first  time  in  history  with  their  tears  and  their  laughter, 
their  scorn  of  the  mere  male  and  their  "  curst  yeelding 
modestie,"  their  bold  sallies  and  their  bashful  blushes. 
Nothing  like  this  had  as  yet  been  seen  in  English 
literature.  I  have  already  pointed  out  why  it  was 
that  woman  asserted  her  place  in  art  at  this  juncture. 
Yet,  although  the  revolution  would  have  come  about  in 

1  Bond,  II.  p.  284. 


126  JOHN    LYLY 

any  case,  all  honour  must  be  paid  to  the  man  who  saw 
it  coming,  anticipated  it,  and  determined  its  fortunes  by 
the  creation  of  such  a  number  of  feminine  characters 
from  every  class  in  the  social  scale.  And  if  it  be  true 
that  he  only  gave  us  "  their  outward  husk  of  wit  and 
raillery  and  flirtation,"  if  it  be  true  that  his  interpretation 
of  woman  was  superficial,  that  he  had  no  understanding 
for  the  soul  behind  the  social  mask,  for  the  emotional 
and  passionate  current,  now  a  quiet  stream,  now  a  raging 
torrent,  beneath  the  layer  of  etiquette,  his  work  was  none 
the  less  important  for  that. 

"Blood  and  brain  and  spirit,  three 
Join  for  true  felicity." 

Blood  his  girls  had  and  brain,  but  his  genius  was  not 
divine  enough  to  bestow  upon  them  the  third  essential. 
Yet  they  were  alive,  they  were  flesh,  they  had  wit,  and 
in  this  they  are  undoubtedly  the  forerunners  not  only  of 
Shakespeare's  heroines  but  of  Congreve's  and  of  Mere- 
dith's— to  mention  the  three  greatest  delineators  of 
women  in  our  language.  They  are  the  Undines  in  the 
story  of  our  literature,  beautiful  and  seductive,  complete 
in  everything  but  soul ! 

While  realising  that  woman  should  be  the  real 
protagonist  in  comedy,  Lyly  also  appreciated  the  fact 
that  skilful  dialogue  and  brilliant  repartee  are  only  less 
important,  and  that  for  this  purpose  prose  was  more  suit- 
able than  verse.  Gascoigne's  Supposes  was  his  model  in 
both  these  innovations,  and  yet  he  would  undoubtedly 
have  adopted  them  of  his  own  accord  without  any 
outside  suggestion.  And  since  The  Supposes  was  a 
translation,  Campaspe  deserves  the  title  of  the  first  purely 
English  comedy  in  prose.  The  Euphues  had  given  him 
a  reputation  for  sprightly  and  witty  dialogue,  he  himself 
was  possibly  known  at  Court  as  a  brilliant  conversation- 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  I2/ 

alist,  and  therefore  when  he  came  to  write  plays  he 
would  naturally  do  all  in  his  power  to  maintain  and  to 
improve  his  fame  in  this  respect.  With  his  acute  sense 
of  form  he  would  recognise  how  clumsy  had  been  the 
efforts  of  previous  dramatists,  and  he  knew  also  how 
impossible  it  would  be,  in  verse  form,  to  write  witty 
dialogue,  up  to  date  in  the  subjects  it  handled.  He 
therefore  determined  to  use  prose,  and,  though  he  ma- 
nipulates it  somewhat  awkwardly  in  his  earlier  plays 
while  still  under  the  influence  of  the  euphuistic  fashion, 
he  steadily  improves,  as  he  gains  experience  of  the 
function  and  needs  of  dialogue,  until  at  length  he  suc- 
ceeds in  creating  a  thoroughly  serviceable  dramatic 
instrument.  This  departure  was  a  great  event  in  English 
literature.  Shakespeare  was  too  much  of  a  poet  ever  to 
dispense  altogether  with  verse,  but  he  appreciated  the 
virtue  of  prose  as  a  vehicle  of  comic  dialogue,  and  he 
uses  it  occasionally  even  in  his  earliest  comedy,  Loves 
Labours  Lost,  Ben  Jonson  on  the  other  hand — perhaps 
more  than  any  other  Lyly's  spiritual  heir — wrote  nearly 
all  his  comedies  in  prose.  And  it  is  not  fanciful  I  think 
to  see  in  Lyly's  pointed  dialogue,  tinged  with  euphuism, 
the  forerunner  of  Congreve's  sparkling  conversation  and 
of  the  epigrammatic  writing  of  our  modern  English 
playwrights. 

Such  are  the  main  characteristics  of  Lyly's  dramatic 
genius.  To  attempt  to  trace  his  influence  upon  later 
writers  would  be  to  write  a  history  of  the  Elizabethan 
stage.  In  the  foregoing  remarks  I  have  continually  in- 
dicated Shakespeare's  debt  to  him  in  matters  of  detail. 
T)ie  Midsummer  Nights  Dream  is  from  beginning  to  end 
full  of  reminiscences  from  the  plays  of  the  earlier  drama- 
tist, transmuted,  vitalized,  and  beautified  by  the  genius 
of  our  greatest  poet.  It  is  as  if  he  had  witnessed  in  one 


128  JOHN    LYLY 

day  a  representation  of  all  Lyly's  dramatic  work,  and 
wearied  by  the  effort  of  attention  had  fallen  asleep  and 
dreamt  this  Dream.  Love's  Labour  s  Lost  is  only  less 
indebted  to  Lyly ;  indeed  nearly  all  Shakespeare's  plays, 
certainly  all  his  comedies,  exhibit  the  same  influence  : 
for  he  knew  his  Lyly  through  and  through,  and  his 
assimilative  power  was  unequalled.  Shakespeare  might 
almost  be  said  to  be  a  combination  of  Marlowe  and  Lyly 
plus  that  indefinable  something  which  made  him  the 
greatest  writer  of  all  time.  Marlowe,  his  master  in 
tragedy,  was  also  his  master  in  poetry,  in  that  strength 
of  conception  and  beauty  of  execution  which  together 
make  up  the  soul  of  drama.  Lyly,  besides  the  lesson  he 
taught  him  in  comedy,  was  also  his  model  for  dramatic 
construction,  brilliancy  of  dialogue,  technical  skill,  and  all 
that  comprises  the  science  of  play-making — things  which 
were  perhaps  of  more  moment  to  him,  with  his  scanty 
classical  knowledge,  than  Marlowe's  lesson  which  he  had 
little  need  of  learning.  And  what  we  have  said  of 
Shakespeare  may  be  said  of  Elizabethan  drama  as  a 
whole.  "  Marlowe's  place,"  writes  Mr  Havelock  Ellis, 
"  is  at  the  heart  of  English  poetry  "  ;  his  "  high,  astound- 
ing terms  "  took  the  world  of  his  day  by  storm,  his  gift 
to  English  literature  was  the  gift  of  sublime  beauty,  of 
imagination,  and  passion.  Lyly  could  lay  claim  to  none 
of  these,  but  his  contribution  was  perhaps  of  more  im- 
portance still.  He  did  the  spade-work,  and  did  it  once 
and  for  all.  With  his  knowledge  of  the  Classics  and  of 
previous  English  experiments  he  wrote  plays  that,  com- 
pared with  what  had  gone  before,  were  models  of  plot 
construction,  of  the  development  of  action,  and  even  of 
characterization.  Moreover  he  was  before  Marlowe  by 
some  nine  years  in  the  production  of  true  romantic 
drama,  and  in  his  treatment  of  women.  In  spite,  there- 


LYLY   THE    DRAMATIST  1 29 

fore,  of  Marlowe's  immense  superiority  to  him  on  the 
aesthetic  side,  Lyly  must  be  placed  above  the  author  of 
Edward  II.  in  dynamical  importance. 

In  connexion  with  Lyly's  influence  the  question  of 
the  exact  nature  of  his  dramatic  productions  is  worth 
a  moment's  consideration.  Are  they  masques  or  dramas  ? 
and  if  the  latter  are  they  strictly  speaking  classical  or 
romantic  in  form  ?  As  I  have  already  suggested,  the 
answer  to  the  first  half  of  this  question  is  that  they  were 
neither  and  both.  In  Lyly's  day  drama  had  not  yet 
been  differentiated  from  masque,  and  his  plays,  therefore, 
partook  of  the  nature  of  both.  Produced  as  they  were 
for  the  Court,  it  was  natural  that  they  should  possess 
something  of  that  atmosphere  of  pageantry,  music,  and 
pantomime  which  we  now  associate  with  the  word 
masque.  But  Elizabeth  was  economical  and  preferred 
plain  drama  to  the  expensive  masque  displays,  though 
she  was  ready  to  enjoy  the  latter,  if  they  were  provided 
for  her  by  Leicester  or  some  other  favourite.  Lyly's 
work  therefore  never  advanced  very  far  in  the  direction 
of  the  masque,  though  in  its  complimentary  allegories  it 
had  much  in  common  with  it.  The  question  as  to 
whether  it  should  be  described  as  classical  rather  than 
as  romantic  is  not  one  which  need  detain  us  long.  It  is 
interesting  however  as  it  again  brings  out  the  peculiarity 
of  Lyly's  position.  It  may  indeed  be  claimed  for  him 
that  all  sections  of  Elizabethan  drama,  except  perhaps 
tragedy,  are  to  be  found  in  embryo  in  his  plays.  I  have 
said  that  he  was  the  first  of  the  romanticists,  but  he  was 
no  less  the  first  important  writer  of  classical  drama. 
Gorbuduc  and  its  like  had  been  tedious  and  clumsy 
imitations,  and,  moreover,  they  had  imitated  Seneca,  who 
was  a  late  classic.  Lyly,  though  the  Greek  dramatists 
were  unknown  to  him,  had  probably  studied  Aristotle's 

w,  9 


130  JOHN    LYLY 

Poetics,  and  was  certainly  acquainted  with  Horace's  Ars 
Poetica,  and  with  the  comedies  of  Terence  and  Plautus. 
He  was,  therefore,  an  authority  on  matters  dramatic,  and 
could  boast  of  a  learning. on  the  subject  of  technique 
which  few  of  his  contemporaries  or  his  successors  could 
lay  claim  to,  and  which  they  were  only  too  ready  to 
glean  second-hand.  And  yet,  though  he  was  wise 
enough  to  appreciate  all  that  the  classics  could  teach 
him,  he  was  a  romanticist  at  heart,  or  perhaps  it  would 
be  better  to  say  that  he  threw  the  beautiful  and  loosely 
fitting  garment  of  romanticism  over  the  classical  frame 
of  his  dramas.  And  even  in  the  matter  of  this  frame  he 
was  not  always  orthodox.  He  bowed  to  the  tradition  of 
the  unities :  but  he  frequently  broke  with  it ;  in  The 
Woman  alone  does  he  confine  the  action  to  one  day ; 
and,  though  he  is  more  careful  to  observe  unity  of  place, 
imaginary  transfers  occurring  in  the  middle  of  scenes 
indicate  his  rebellion  against  this  restriction.  Neverthe- 
less, when  all  is  said,  he  remains,  with  the  exception  of 
Jonson,  the  most  classical  of  all  Elizabethan  playwrights, 
and  just  as  he  anticipates  the  i/thand  i8th  centuries  in 
his  prose,  so  in  his  dramas  we  may  discover  the  first 
competent  handling  of  those  principles  and  restrictions 
which,  more  clearly  enunciated  by  Ben  Jonson,  became 
iron  laws  for  the  post-Elizabethan  dramatists. 

It  is  this  "  balance  between  classic  precedent  and 
romantic  freedom1"  that  constitutes  his  supreme  im- 
portance, not  only  in  Elizabethan  literature,  but  even 
in  the  history  of  subsequent  English  drama.  From 
Lyly  we  may  trace  the  current  of  romanticism,  through 
Shakespeare,  to  Goethe  and  Victor  Hugo ;  in  Lyly 
also  we  may  see  the  first  embodiment  of  that  classical 
tradition  which  even  Shakespeare's  "purge"  could  do 

1  Bond,  II.  p.  266. 


LYLY   THE   DRAMATIST  131 

nothing  to  check,  and  which  was  eventually  to  lay  its 
dead  hand  upon  the  art  of  the  i8th  century.  May  we 
not  say  more  than  this  ?  Is  he  not  the  first  name  in  a 
continuous  series  from  1580  to  our  own  day,  the  first 
link  in  the  chain  of  dramatic  development,  which  binds 
the  "  singing  room  of  Powles  "  to  the  Lyceum  of  Irving  ? 
And  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that  the  principle  which 
he  was  the  first  to  express  shows  at  the  present  moment 
evident  signs  of  exhaustion ;  for  its  future  developments 
seem  to  be  limited  to  that  narrow  strip  of  social  melo- 
drama, which  lies  between  the  devil  of  the  comic  opera 
and  the  deep  sea  of  the  Ibsenic  problem  play.  Indeed 
it  would  not  be  altogether  fanciful,  I  think,  to  say  that 
The  Importance  of  being  Earnest  finishes  the  process  that 
Campaspe  started  ;  and  to  view  that  process  as  a  circle 
begun  in  euphuism,  and  completed  in  aestheticism. 


9—2 


CHAPTER   IV. 

CONCLUSION. 

AT  the  beginning  of  this  essay  I  gave  a  short  account 
of  the  main  facts  of  our  author's  life,  reserving  my  judg- 
ment upon  his  character  and  genius  until  after  the 
examination  of  his  works.  That  examination  which 
I  have  now  concluded  is  far  too  superficial  in  character 
to  justify  a  psychological  synthesis  such  as  that  advo- 
cated by  M.  Hennequin1.  But  though  this  essay  cannot 
claim  to  have  exhausted  the  subject  of  the  ways  and 
means  of  Lyly's  art,  yet  in  the  course  of  our  survey  we 
have  had  occasion  to  notice  several  interesting  points  in 
reference  to  his  mind  and  character,  which  it  will  be  well 
to  bring  together  now  in  order  to  give  a  portrait,  however 
inadequate,  of  the  man  who  played  so  important  a  part 
in  English  literature. 

Nash  supplies  the  only  piece  of  contemporary  infor- 
mation about  his  person  and  habits,  and  all  he  tells  us 
is  that  he  was  short  of  stature  and  that  he  smoked. 
But  Ben  Jonson  gives  us  an  unmistakeable  caricature 
of  him  under  the  delightfully  appropriate  name  of 
Fastidious  Brisk  in  Every  Man  out  of  His  Humour. 
He  describes  him  as  a  "  neat,  spruce,  affecting  courtier, 
one  that  wears  clothes  well,  and  in  fashion ;  practiseth 

1  La  Critique  Scientifique. 


CONCLUSION  133 

by  his  glass  how  to  salute  ;  speaks  good  remnants  not- 
withstanding his  base  viol  and  tobacco ;  swears  tersely 
and  with  variety  ;  cares  not  what  lady's  favour  he  belies, 
or  great  man's  familiarity :  a  good  property  to  perfume 
the  boot  of  a  coach.  He  will  borrow  another  man's 
horse  to  praise  and  back  him  as  his  own.  Or,  for  a  need 
can  post  himself  into  credit  with  his  merchant,  only  with 
the  gingle  of  his  spur  and  the  jerk  of  his  wand1." 
Allowing  for  the  exaggeration  of  satire,  we  cannot 
doubt  that  this  portrait  is  in  the  main  correct.  It 
indicates  a  man  who  follows  fashion,  even  in  swearing, 
to  the  excess  of  foppery,  who  delights  in  scandal,  who 
contracts  debts  with  an  easy  conscience,  and  who  is 
withal  a  merry  fellow  and  a  wit.  All  this  is  in  accord- 
ance with  what  we  know  of  his  life.  We  can  picture 
him  at  Oxford  serenading  the  Magdalen  dons  with  his 
"  base  viol,"  or  perhaps  organizing  a  night  party  to 
disturb  the  slumbers  of  some  insolent  tradesman  who 
had  dared  to  insist  upon  payment ;  his  neat  little  figure 
leading  a  gang  of  young  rascals,  and  among  them  the 
"  sea-dog  "  Hakluyt,  the  sturdy  and  as  yet  unconverted 
Gosson,  the  refined  Watson,  and  perchance  George 
Pettie  concealing  his  thorough  enjoyment  of  the  situa- 
tion by  a  smile  of  elderly  amusement.  Or  yet  again  we 
can  see  him  at  the  room  of  some  boon  companion 
seriously  announcing  to  a  convulsed  assembly  his  in- 
tention of  applying  for  a  fellowship,  and  when  the  last 
quip  had  been  hurled  at  him  through  clouds  of  smoke 
and  the  laughter  had  died  down,  proposing  that  the 
house  should  go  into  committee  for  the  purpose  of 
concocting  the  now  famous  letter  to  Burleigh.  When 
we  next  catch  a  glimpse  of  him  he  is  no  longer  the 
madcap ;  he  walks  with  such  dignity  as  his  stature 
1  From  the  Preface. 


134  JOHN    LYLY 

permits,  for  he  is  now  author  of  the  much-talked-of 
Anatomy  of  Wit,  and  one  of  the  most  fashionable  young 
men  of  the  Court.  What  elaboration  of  toilet,  what 
adjustment  and  readjustment  of  ruffles  and  lace,  what 
bowing  and  scraping  before  the  glass,  preceded  that 
great  event  of  his  life — his  presentation  to  the  Queen — 
can  only  be  guessed  at.  But  we  can  well  picture  him, 
following  his  magnificently  over-dressed  patron  up  the 
long  reception-room,  his  heart  beating  with  pleasurable 
excitement,  yet  his  manners  not  forgotten  in  the  hour 
of  his  pride,  as  he  nods  to  an  acquaintance  and  bows 
with  sly  demureness  to  some  Iffida  or  Camilla.  Those 
were  the  days  of  his  success,  the  happiest  period  of  his 
life  when,  as  secretary  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain  and 
associate  of  the  highest  in  the  land,  he  breathed  his 
native  atmosphere,  the  praises  and  flattery  of  a  fickle 
world  of  fashion.  But,  time-server  as  he  was,  he  was  no 
sycophant.  Leaving  de  Vere's  service  after  a  sharp 
quarrel,  he  was  not  ashamed  to  take  up  the  profession 
of  teaching  in  which  he  had  already  had  some  experience. 
We  see  him  next,  therefore,  a  master  of  St  Paul's, 
engrossed  in  the  not  unpleasant  duties  of  drilling  his 
pupils  for  the  performance  of  his  plays,  accompanying 
their  songs  on  his  instrument,  or  himself  taking  his 
place  on  the  stage,  now  as  Diogenes  in  his  ubiquitous 
tub,  and  now  as  the  golden-bearded  and  long-eared 
Midas.  And  last  of  all  he  appears  as  the  disappointed, 
disillusioned  man,  "  infelix  academicus  ignotus."  A  wife 
and  children  on  his  hands,  his  occupation  gone,  his  hopes 
of  the  Revels  Mastership  blasted,  he  becomes  desperate, 
and  writes  that  last  bitter  letter  to  Elizabeth. 

The  man  of  fashion  out  of  date,  the  social  success 
left  high  and  dry  by  the  unheeding  current,  he  died 
eventually  in  poverty,  not  because  he  had  wasted  his 


CONCLUSION  135 

substance,  like  Greene,  in  Bohemia,  but  because,  thinking 
to  take  Belgravia  by  storm,  he  had  forgotten  that  the 
foundations  of  that  city  are  laid  on  the  bodies  of  her 
sons.  But  leaving 

"The  thrice  three  muses  mourning  for  the  death 
Of  Learning  late  deceased  in  beggary," 

let  us  look  more  closely  into  the  character  of  this  man, 
whose  brilliant  and  successful  youth  was  followed  by  so 
sad  an  old  age. 

In  spite  of  Professor  Raleigh  and  the  moralizing  of 
EnpJines,  we  may  decide  that  there  was  nothing  of  the 
Puritan  about  him.  His  life  at  Oxford,  his  attachment 
to  the  notorious  de  Vere,  the  keen  pleasure  he  took  in 
the  things  of  this  world,  are,  I  think,  sufficient  to  prove 
this.  His  general  attitude  towards  life  was  one  of  vigorous 
hedonism,  not  of  intellectual  asceticism.  The  ethical 
element  of  Ejiphues  links  him  rather  to  the  already 
vanishing  Humanism  than  to  the  rising  Puritanism, 
against  which  all  his  sympathies  were  enlisted,  as  his 
contributions  to  the  Marprelate  controversy  indicate.  I 
have  refrained  from  touching  upon  these  Mar-Martin 
tracts  because  they  possess  neither  aesthetic  nor  dyna- 
mical importance,  being,  as  Gabriel  Harvey — always 
ready  with  the  spiteful  epigram — describes  them,  "  ale- 
house and  tinkerly  stuffe,  nothing  worthy  a  scholar  or  a 
real  gentleman."  They  are  worth  mentioning,  however, 
as  throwing  a  light  upon  the  religious  prejudices  of  our 
author.  He  was  a  courtier  and  he  was  a  churchman,  and 
in  lending  his  aid  to  crush  sectarians  he  thought  no  more 
deeply  about  the  matter  than  he  did  in  voting  as  Member 
of  Parliament  against  measures  which  conflicted  with  his 
social  inclinations.  There  was  probably  not  an  ounce  of 
the  theological  spirit  in  his  whole  composition  ;  for  his 
refutation  of  atheism  was  a  youthful  essay  in  dialectics, 


136  JOHN    LYLY 

a  bone  thrown  to   the   traditions   of  the  moral  Court 
treatise. 

If,  indeed,  he  was  seriously  minded  in  any  respect,  it 
was  upon  the  subject  of  Art.  Himself  a  novelist  and 
dramatist,  he  displayed  also  a  keen  delight  in  music,  and 
evinced  a  considerable,  if  somewhat  superficial,  interest 
in  painting.  And  yet,  though  he  apparently  made  it  his 
business  to  know  something  of  every  art,  he  was  no 
sciolist,  and,  if  he  went  far  afield,  it  was  only  in  order  to 
improve  himself  in  his  own  particular  branch.  All  the 
knowledge  he  acquired  in  such  amateur  appreciation  was 
brought  to  the  service  of  his  literary  productions.  And 
the  same  may  be  said  of  his  extensive  excursions  into 
the  land  of  books.  No  Elizabethan  dramatist  but  Lyly, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  Jonson,  could  marshal 
such  an  array  of  learning,  and  few  could  have  turned  even 
what  they  had  with  such  skill  and  effect  to  their  own 
purposes.  Lyly  had  made  a  thorough  study  of  such 
classics  as  were  available  in  his  day,  and  we  have  seen 
how  he  employed  them  in  his  novel  and  in  his  plays. 
But  the  classics  formed  only  a  small  section  of  the  books 
digested  by  this  omnivorous  reader.  If  he  could  not 
read  Spanish,  French,  or  Italian,  he  devoured  and  as- 
similated the  numerous  translations  from  those  languages 
into  English,  Guevara  indeed  being  his  chief  inspiration. 
Nor  did  he  neglect  the  literature  of  his  own  land.  Few 
books  we  may  suppose,  which  had  been  published  in 
English  previous  to  1580,  had  been  unnoticed  by  him. 
We  have  seen  what  a  thorough  acquaintance  he  possessed 
of  English  drama  before  his  day,  and  how  he  exhibits 
the  influence  of  the  writings  of  Ascham  and  perhaps 
other  humanists,  how  he  laid  himself  under  obligation 

o 

to  the  bestiaries  and  the  proverb-books  for  his  euphuistic 
philosophy,  and  how  his  lyrics  indicate  a  possible  study 


CONCLUSION  137 

of  the  mediaeval  scholar  song-books.  In  conclusion,  it 
is  interesting  to  notice  that  we  have  clear  evidence  that 
he  knew  Chaucer1. 

Idleness,  therefore,  cannot  be  urged  against  him;  nor 
does  this  imposing  display  of  learning  indicate  a  pedant. 
Lyly  had  nothing  in  common  with  the  spirit  of  his  old 
friend  Gabriel  Harvey,  whom  indeed  he  laughed  at. 
There  is  a  story  that  Watson  and  Nash  invited  a  com- 
pany together  to  sup  at  the  Nag's  Head  in  Cheapside, 
and  to  discuss  the  pedantries  of  Harvey,  and  our  euphuist 
in  all  probability  made  one  of  the  party.  His  erudition 
sat  lightly  on  him,  for  it  was  simply  a  means  to  the  end 
of  his  art.  Moreover,  a  student's  life  could  have  possessed 
no  attraction  for  one  of  his  temperament.  Unlike  Mar- 
lowe and  Greene,  he  had  harvested  all  his  wild  oats 
before  he  left  Oxford  ;  but  the  process  had  refined  rather 
than  sobered  him,  for  his  laugh  lost  none  of  its  merri- 
ment, and  his  wit  improved  with  experience,  so  that 
we  may  well  believe  that  in  the  Court  he  was  more 
Philautus  than  Euphues.  In  his  writings  also  his  aim 
was  to  be  graceful  rather  than  erudite ;  and,  ponderous 
as  his  Eiiphues  seems  to  us  now,  it  appealed  to  its 
Elizabethan  public  as  a  model  of  elegance.  His  art  was 
perhaps  only  an  instrument  for  the  acquisition  of  social 
success,  but  he  was  nevertheless  an  artist  to  the  fineer- 

o 

tips.  Yet  he  was  without  the  artist's  ideals,  and  this  fact, 
together  with  his  frivolity,  vitiated  his  writings  to  a  con- 
siderable extent,  or,  rather,  the  superficiality  of  his  art 
was  the  result  of  the  superficiality  of  his  soul.  Of  that 
"  high  seriousness,"  which  Aristotle  has  declared  to  be 
the  poet's  essential,  he  has  nothing.  Technique  through- 
out was  his  chief  interest,  and  it  is  in  technique  alone 
that  he  can  claim  to  have  succeeded.  "  More  art  than 

1  Bond,  I.  p.  401. 

9—5 


138  JOHN   LYLY 

nature"  is  a  just  criticism  of  everything  he  wrote,  with 
the  exception  of  his  lyrics.  He  was  supremely  clever, 
one  of  the  cleverest  writers  in  our  literature  when  we 
consider  what  he  accomplished,  and  how  small  was  the 
legacy  of  his  predecessors  ;  but  he  was  much  too  clever 
to  be  simple.  He  excelled  in  the  niceties  of  art,  he 
revelled  in  the  accomplishment  of  literary  feats,  his 
intellect  was  akin  to  the  intellect  of  those  who  in  their 
humbler  fashion  find  pleasure  in  the  solution  of  acrostics. 
And  consequently  his  writings  were  frequently  as  finical 
as  his  dress  was  fastidious  ;  for  it  was  the  form  and  not 
the  idea  which  fascinated  him  ;  to  his  type  of  mind  the 
letter  was  everything  and  the  spirit  nothing.  Indeed, 
the  true  spirit  of  art  was  quite  beyond  his  comprehension, 
though  he  was  connoisseur  enough  to  appreciate  its  pre- 
sence in  others.  Artist  and  man  of  taste  he  was,  but  he 
was  no  poet.  Artist  he  was,  I  have  said,  to  the  finger- 
tips, but  his  art  lay  at  his  fingers'  ends,  not  at  his  soul. 
He  was  facile,  ingenious,  dexterous,  everything  but  in- 
spired. He  had  wit,  learning,  skill,  imagination,  but 
none  of  that  passionate  apprehension  of  life  which 
makes  the  poet,  and  which  Marlowe  and  Shakespeare 
possessed  so  fully.  And  therefore  it  was  his  fate  to  be 
nothing  more  than  a  forerunner,  a  straightener  of  the 
way;  and  before  his  death  he  realised  with  bitterness 
that  he  was  only  a  stepping-stone  for  young  Shakespeare 
to  mount  his  throne.  He  was,  indeed,  the  draughtsman 
of  the  Elizabethan  workshop,  planning  and  designing 
what  others  might  build.  He  was  the  expert  mathema- 
tician who  formulated  the  laws  which  enabled  Shakespeare 
to  read  the  stars.  Of  the  heights  and  depths  of  passion 
he  was  unconscious  ;  he  was  no  psychologist,  laying  bare 
the  human  soul  with  the  lancet ;  and  though  now  and 
again,  as  in  Endymion>  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  silver 


CONCLUSION  139 

beauties  of  the  moon,  he  had  no  conception  of  the  glories 
of  the  midday  sun. 

And  yet  though  he  lacked  the  poet's  sense,  his  wit 
did  something  to  repair  the  defect,  and  even  if  it  has  a 
musty  flavour  for  our  pampered  palates,  it  saves  his 
writings  from  becoming  unbearably  wearisome ;  and 
moreover  his  fun  was  without  that  element  of  coarse- 
ness which  mars  the  comic  scenes  of  later  dramatists 
who  appealed  to  more  popular  audiences.  But  it  is 
quite  impossible  for  us  to  realise  how  brilliant  his  wit 
seemed  to  the  Elizabethans  before  it  was  eclipsed  by 
the  genius  of  Shakespeare.  Even  as  late  as  1632  Blount 
exclaims,  "  This  poet  sat  at  the  sunne's  table,"  words 
referring  perhaps  more  especially  to  Lyly's  poetical 
faculty,  but  much  truer  if  interpreted  as  an  allusion 
to  his  wit.  The  genius  of  our  hero  played  like  a  dancing 
sunbeam  over  the  early  Elizabethan  stage.  Never  before 
had  England  seen  anything  like  it,  and  we  cannot  wonder 
that  his  public  hailed  him  in  their  delight  as  one  of  the 
greatest  writers  of  all  time.  How  could  they  know  that 
he  was  only  the  first  voice  in  a  choir  of  singers  which, 
bursting  forth  before  his  notes  had  died  away,  would 
shake  the  very  arch  of  heaven  with  the  passion  and  the 
beauty  of  their  song?  But  for  us  who  have  heard  the 
chorus  first,  the  recitative  seems  poor  and  thin.  The 
magic  has  long  passed  from  Euphues,  once  a  name  to 
conjure  with,  and  even  the  plays  seem  dull  and  lifeless. 
That  it  should  be  so  was  inevitable,  for  the  wit  which 
illuminated  these  works  was  of  the  time,  temporary,  the 
earliest  beam  of  the  rising  sun.  This  sunbeam  it  is 
impossible  to  recover,  and  with  all  our  efforts  we  catch 
little  but  dust. 

And  yet  for  the  scientific  critic  Lyly's  work  is  still 
alive  with  significance.  Worthless  as  much  of  it  is  from 


140  JOHN    LYLY 

the  aesthetic  point  of  view,  from  the  dynamical,  the 
historical  aspect  few  English  writers  are  of  greater 
interest.  Waller  was  rescued  from  oblivion  and  labelled 
as  the  first  of  the  classical  poets.  But  we  can  claim 
more  for  Lyly  than  this.  Extravagant  as  it  may  sound, 
he  was  one  of  the  great  founders  of  our  literature.  His 
experiments  in  prose  first  taught  men  that  style  was  a 
matter  worthy  of  careful  study,  he  was  among  the  earliest 
of  those  who  realised  the  utility  of  blank  verse  for 
dramatic  purposes,  he  wrote  the  first  English  novel  in 
our  language,  and  finally  he  is  not  only  deservedly  re- 
cognised as  the  father  of  English  comedy,  but  by  his 
mastery  of  dramatic  technique  he  laid  such  a  burden  of 
obligation  upon  future  playwrights  that  he  placed  English 
drama  upon  a  completely  new  basis.  Of  the  three  main 
branches  of  our  literature,  therefore,  two — the  novel  and 
the  drama — were  practically  of  his  creation,  and  though 
his  work  suffered  because  it  lacked  the  quality  of  poetry, 
for  the  historian  of  literature  it  is  none  the  less  important 
on  that  account. 


LIST    OF    CHIEF    AUTHORITIES. 

ARBER.     The  Martin  Marprelate  Controversy.     Scholar's  Library. 
ASCHAM,  ROGER.     The  Schoolmaster.     Arber's  English  Reprints. 

„  „  Toxophilus.  „  „  „ 

BAKER,  G.  P.     Lyly's  Endymion. 

BARNEFIELD,  RICHARD.     Poems.    Arber's  Scholar's  Library. 
BERNERS,  LORD.     The  Golden  Boke  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 

„  „          Froissart's  Chronicles.     Globe  Edition. 

BOAS.     Works  of  Kyd.     Clarendon  Press. 
BOND,  R.  W.     John  Lyly.        „  „       3  Vols. 

BRUNEI.     Manuel  de  Libraire. 
BUTLER  CLARKE.    Spanish  Literature. 
CHILD,  C.  G.     John  Lyly  and  Euphuism.     Miinchener  Beitrage 

VII. 

CRAIK,  SIR  H.     Specimens  of  English  Prose. 

DICTIONARY  of  National  Biography. 

EARLE.     History  of  English  Prose. 

FIELD,  NATHANIEL.    A  Woman  is  a  Weathercock. 

FITZMAURICE-KELLY.     Spanish  Literature.     Heinemann. 

GAYLEY.     Representative  English  Comedies. 

GOSSE.     From  Shakespeare  to  Pope. 

GOSSON.     School  of  Abuse.     Arber's  English  Reprints. 

GUEVARA,  ANTONIO  DE.      Libro  Aureo   del    emperado    Marco 

Aurelio. 

HALLAM.     Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe. 
HENNEQUIN.     La  Critique  Scientifique. 
HUME,  MARTIN.     Spanish  Influence  on  English  Literature. 
JUSSERAND.     The  English  Novel  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare. 
LANDMANN,  DR.     Shakespeare  and  Euphuism.     New  Shak.  Soc. 

Trans.   1880-2. 

„  „       Introduction  to  Euphues.  Sprache  und  Literatur. 

LATIMER.     Sermons.     Arber's  English  Reprints. 


142  JOHN    LYLY 

LEE,  SIDNEY.    Athenaeum,  July  14,  1883. 

„  Huon  of  Bordeaux  (Berners')-     Early  Eng.  Text 

Soc.     Extra  Series  XL.,  XLI. 
„  Life  of  Shakespeare. 

LIEBIG.     Lord  Bacon  et  les  sciences  d'observation  en  rnoyen  age. 

LYLY.     Euphues.     Arber's  English  Reprints. 

MACAULAY,   G.    G.      Introd.    to    Froissart's    Chronicles.      Globe 
Edition. 

MEREDITH,  GEORGE.    Essay  on  Comedy. 

MEziERES.     Pre'de'cesseurs  et  contemporains  de  Shakespeare. 

MINTO.     Manual  of  English  Prose  Literature. 

NORTH,  THOMAS.    Diall  of  Princes. 

PEARSON,  KARL.     Chances  of  Death.     Vol.  II.  German  Passion 
Play. 

PETTIE,  GEORGE.     Petite  Palace  of  Pettie  his  Pleasure. 

RALEIGH,  PROF.  W.    The  English  Novel. 

RETURN  FROM  PARNASSUS.    Arber's  Scholar's  Library. 

SAINTSBURY.     Specimens  of  English  Prose. 

SPENCER,  HERBERT.    Essays — Philosophy  of  Style. 

SYMONDS,  J.  A.     Shakespeare's  Predecessors. 

UDALL,  NICHOLAS.      Ralph   Roister  Doister.      Arber's  English 
Reprints. 

UNDERBILL.     Spanish  Literature  in  Tudor  England. 

WARD,  DR  A.  W.     English  Dramatic  Literature.     3  Vols. 
„        MRS  H.     "John  Lyly,"  Article  in  Enc.  Brit. 

WATSON,  THOMAS.     Poems.    Arber's  English  Reprints. 

WEBBE.      Discourses   of  English   Poetry.      Arber's  English  Re- 
prints. 

WEYMOUTH,    DR   R.    F.      On    Euphuism.     Phil.    Soc.    Trans. 
1870-2. 


INDEX. 


Affectionate  Shepherd,  46 

Albiori 's  England,  57 

Alen9on,  Due  d',  105 

Amis  and  Amile,  66 

Anatomy  of  Wit  (v.  Euphues) 

Andrews,  Dr,  55 

Arber  (reprints),   12,  27,  38,  46 

Arcadia,  9,  51,  56,  58,  68,  82,  84 

Aretino,  48 

Ariosto,  94,  96 

Aristotle,  121,  129,   137 

Armada,  Spanish,   no 

Arnold,  Matthew,  47 

Ars  Poetica  (of  Horace),   130 

Ascham,  31,  37,  38,  39,  42,  50,  52, 

6?>  73.  74.  i36 

Athenae  Oxonienscs,  4,  5 

Athemzum,   30 

Athens,  69,  79 

Aucassin  and  Nicolette,  66 

Aurelius,  Marcus,  22,  34,  69 

Austen,  Jane,  80 

Bacon,  Lord,  19,  47 

Baena,  48 

Baker,  G.  P.,  4,  5,  7,  85,  98 

Baker,  George,   28 

Baker,  Robert,  28 

Barnefield,  Richard,  46 

Berners,  Lord,  22,  29,  30,  31,  33, 

34.  35.  36,  42,  66,  67 
Bertaut,  Rene,  34,  35 
bestiaries,  20,  41,   136 
Biographia  Britannica,  12 


Blackfriars,  100 

blank  verse,  3,  97,  113 

Blount,   114,   139 

Boas,  45 

Boccaccio,  66,  67,  75 

Bond,  R.  W.,  4,  5,  8,  9,  26,  30,  34, 
43>  55.  °~°,  69,  72,  74,  78,  81,  85, 
86,  87,  89,  94,  95,  97,  98,  99, 
100,  108,  113,  114,  115,  116,  117, 
120,  125,  130,  137 

Brunei,  34 

Bryan,  Sir  Francis,  30,  31 

Burleigh,  4,  6,  7,  86,   133 

Butler  Clarke,  49 

Byron  (anticipated  by  Lyly),   77 

Cambridge,  7,  75,  87,  93 
Campaspe,  7,  85,  87,  98-102,  104, 

105,   109,   116,  i2i,   124,  126 
Canterbury  Tales,  65 
Carew,  27 

Carpenter,  Edward,  19 
Castiglione,  48,  49,  72 
Caxton,  66,  67 
Cecil,  8 
Celestina,  24 
Charles  VIII.,  48,  66 
Chaucer,  65,  66,   137 
Cheke,  Sir  John,  26,  31,  37,  42,  50 
Child,  C.  G.,  14,  15,  16,  56,  59 
choristers,  7,  8,  87,  92,  94,   116 
Christ  Church,  26,  39 
Cicero,   12,  50 
Civile  Conversation,  40 


144 


INDEX 


comedy 

before  Lyly,  89-98 

and  folly,  90 

and  masque,  112 

and  music,  87,  92,  94,  116 

and  society,  88 

and  woman,  97-98, 100-101,  125- 

126 

Congreve,  88,  101,  126,  127 
Cooling  Carde  for  all  Fond  Lovers, 

A,  ji 
Corpus    Christi    College   (Oxford), 

26 

Corro,  Antonio  de,  26,  28 
Cortes,  27 

Craik,  Sir  H.,  28,  37,  38,  39 
Cupid  and   my    Campaspe  played, 

"5»   "7 
Cynthia,  46 

Damon  and  Pithias,  93,   116,   119 

De  Educalione  (of  Plutarch),  72 

Dekker,  Thomas,  114,    121 

Demosthenes,   1 2 

Devereux,  Penelope,   109 

Diatt  of  Princes,  22,  30,  39,  69 

Diana,  24 

Dickens,  79 

Dispraise  of  the  Life  of  a  Courtier, 

31 

Doni,  48 
Dryden,  84 
dubartism,  51 

Earle,  53,  54 

education   (Lyly's   views   on),    72- 

73 

Edward  II.,  129 
Edwardes,  Richard,  86,  87,  93,  94, 

95.  97,  ioi 
Eliot,  George,  80 
Elizabeth,   Queen,  3,   6,    8,   9,   17, 

25,   26,  65,  75,  80,  81,  86,   98, 

ICO,   IOI,   103,   104,   IO5,   IO7,   112, 
129,    134 


Ellis,  Havelock,  128 

Endymion,  85,  98,  99,  104,  107-110, 
121,  122,  138 

English  Novel,  The  (v.  Raleigh) 

English  Novel  in  the  time  of  Shake- 
speare, The  (v.  Jusserand) 

Erasmus,  26 

E stella,  27 

Eton,  93 

Euphues 

antecedents  of,  65-69 
criticism  and  description  of 
(i)    Anatomy  of  Wit,  69-73 
(ii)  Euphues  and  his  England, 

76-80 

dedication  of,  74-76 
distinction  between  the  two  parts, 

73-74 
Elizabethan  reputation  of,  10-13, 

43-47,  57,  61,  84,  137 
first  English  novel,  3,  10-11,  74, 

140 

moral  tone  of,  5,   71-72 
publication  and  editions  of,  6,  7, 

8,  10,  43,  57,  61,  73,  83,  84 
quoted,  4,  10,  15,  16,  18,  20,  21, 

45,  58,  7°,  76,  /8 

Euphues  and  his  England  (v.  Eu- 
phues') 

Euphues  and  his  Ephoebus,  72-73 
Euphuism 

analysis  of,    13-21 

an  aristocratic  fashion,  3,  49,  54, 

56,  61,  62 
diction  and,  56 
humanism  and,  36-39,  50-53 
imitators  of,  43-46 
origins  of,  21-43 
Oxford  and,  26-28.  39-42,  45-46, 

54,  60,  6 1 
poetry  and,  55-56 
Renaissance  and,  47-52,  62 
Scott's  misapprehension  of,  n 
secret  of  Lyly's  influence,   11-13 
Spain  and,  22-36 


INDEX 


Every  Man   out  of  His   Humour, 


fabliau,  the,  66 

Faery  Queen,    The,   103 

Field,  Nathaniel,  44,   102 

Fitzmaurice-Kelly,  24 

Flaubert,  56 

Florence,  79 

Fortescue,  69 

France  (and    French),   22,   23,   29, 

3i»  34,  35,  36,  40,  42,  47,  48,  52, 

53,  56,  61,  66,  80,  136 
Frolssart,  31,  33,  35 

Gager,  William,  39,  86 
Gallathea,  98,  107,  112 
Gammer  Gurtoifs  Needle,  93,  96, 

116 
Gascoigne,  George,  69,  94,  95,  97, 

114,   119,   126 
Gayley,  91,  92,  94,  95 
Geoffrey  of  Dunstable,  92 
Gesta  Romanorum,  66 
Gibbon,  58 

Glasse  for  Europe,  A,  52,  81 
Goethe,  130 
Golden  Boke,    Tiie,  22,    30,   31,   36, 

37 

Gollancz,  109 
gongorism,   51 
Goodlet,  Dr,  56 
Gorbuditc,  129 
Gosse,  36 
Gosson,  Stephen,  4,  27,  28,  46,  53, 

71,  86,  109,  133 
Granada,  24 
Greek,  48,  62 
Greene,  43,   135,  137 
Grey,  Lady  Jane,  74 
Guazzo,  40 
Guerrero,  26 
Guevara,  Antonio  de,  22-24,  28-31, 

33-38,    40,   42,   49>   69,    72,   76, 

136 


Habsburgs,  103 

Hakluyt,  24,  26,  27,  133 

Hallam,  33,  34 

Halpin,   109,   in 

Harrison,  69 

Harvey,  Dr,  19 

Harvey,  Gabriel,  6,  20,  42,  109,  135, 

137 

Hekatompathia,  7,  45,  46 
Hennequin,  4,  132 
Henry  VIII.,  23,  31 
Hernani,  100 
Herrick,   117 
Heywood,  69,  92,  95,  96 
Homer,  67 
Horace,  130 
Hugo,  Victor,  130 
humanism,  25,  26,  37,  50,  52,  53, 

54,  67,  92,  135 
Hume,  Martin,  24,  25 
Huon  of  Bordeaux,  30,  66 
Huss,  John,  66 

Importance  of  being  Earnest,   The, 

»3J 

Italy  (and  Italian),  24,  25,  47,  48, 
49'  52,  53»  66,  67,  69,  74,  75,  78, 
86,  94,  9.5,  136 

Jacke  Jugelar,  96 

James  I.,  23 

James,  Henry,  53 

Johnson,  Dr,  58 

Jonson,   Ben,    114,    120,   127,    130, 

132,  136 
Jusserand,  18,  43,  65,  72,  76 

Katherine  of  Aragon,  23 
Kenilworth,  109 
Knox,  John,  75 
Kyd,  43-46,   102,  115 
Kynge  Johan,  99 

Lady  WindermerJs  Fan,  88 
Landmann,  Dr,   14,  16,  22,  24,  29, 
30,  31,  40,  42,  47,  69,  75 


146 


INDEX 


Latimer,  36 

Lazarillo  de  T6rmes,  24 

Lee,  Sidney,  12,  29-33,  123 

Leicester,  Earl  of,   107,  109,  129 

Libra  Aureo  (v.  Guevara) 

Liebig,   19 

Literature  of  Eiirope,  33,  34 

Lodge,  Thomas,  27,  43 

Lok,  Henry,  Thomas,  and  Michael, 

26,  27 

London,  7,  71,  78,  91,  114,  119 
London,  Bishop  of,  8 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  no,  113,  127, 

128 
Love's  Metamorphosis,  98,  112,  113, 

122 

Luther,  89 
Lyly,  John : 

character  and  genius,  3,  51,  62, 
63.  123,  i37-J39 

compared  with  Marlowe,  128-129 

courtier  and  man  of  fashion,  63, 
87,  88,  98,  103,  no,  134,  135 

dramatist,  7,  8,  9,  85-131 

forerunner  of  Shakespeare,  43,  47, 
95,  100,  101,  102,  105,  109- 
iii,  116,  123,  124,  127-128, 
130,  138-139 

friends  of,  26-28,  39,  42,  46,  53, 
54,  61,  133,  135,  137 

Jonson's  caricature  of,  132-133 

learning,  17,  20,  38,  69,  86,  95, 
119-120,  130,  136-137 

life,  4-9,86-88,  119-120,  132-135 

novelist,   10,  64-84 

poet,  3,  no,   113,  115-118,  138, 

139 
position  in  English  literature,  2-3, 

10-13,    51,  52-63,  65-69,   73- 

84,  98-131,  138-140 
prose,  3,  11-21,  52-63,  97,  126- 

127 
reputation,  9,  11-13,  43,  57,  58, 

60,  6 1 
lyrics,  115-118 


Macaulay,  G.  C.,  33 

Macaulay,  Lord,  80 

Macbeth,   125 

Magdalen  College  (Oxford),   4,  6, 

86,  133 

Malory,  66,  67 
Marini,  48 

Marius  the  Epicurean,  50 
Marlowe,  3,  47,  113,  128-129,  137, 

138 
Martin  Marprclate,  3,  8,  114,  135- 

136 

Mary  (Tudor),  25,  26 
Mary  (of  Scots),  109 
masque,  112,  129 
Maupassant,  Guy  de,   75 
MaydJs  Metamorphosis,   119 
Mendoza,  23,  24 
Meredith,  George,  53,  79,  88,  97, 

126 
Midas,  98,  104,  110-112,  117,  122, 

125 

Midstimmer  Nighfs  Dream  (antici- 
pated by  Lyly),  105,  109-111, 
123,  127 

Milton,  55 

miracle-play,  the,  89-91,  123 

Monastery,    The,   1 1 

Montemayor,  23,  24 

moral  court  treatise,  the,  49,  65,  67, 
68,  69,  73,  74,  75 

morality-play,  the,  70,  89-92,  94, 
99,  102,  119,  124 

Morte  d' 'Arthur,  66,  67 

Mother  Bombie,  98,  105,  114-117 

Munday,  Anthony,  28,  43 

Murder  of  John  Brewer,  The,   115 

Naples,  69 

Nash,  23,  55,  56,  84,  114,  137 
Newton,  19 
Nicholas,  Thomas,  27 
North,  Sir  Thomas,  22,  29,  30,  39 
novella,  the,   65,   66,   67,   68,    74, 
75 


INDEX 


Ovid,   17,  69,   in 
Oxford,  4-7,  25-28,  39,  42,  46,  49, 
53.   61,  69,   72,  86,  87,  93,  95, 

"9-  '33.  137 
Oxford,  Earl  of  (v.  Vere,  Edward 

de) 

Painter,  William,  40 

Palgrave,  117 

Palawan  and  Arcite,  86 

Pallace  of  Pleasure,  40 

Pamela,   83 

pastoral  romance,  23,  68 

Petrarchisti,  48 

Pettie,  George,  32,  39,  40,  41,  46, 

53>  56,  69,  86,  133 
Petite  Pallace  of  Pettie  his  Pleasure, 

40,  69 
Philip  II.  of  Spain  (caricatured  by 

Lyly),  no 

picaresque  romance,  23 
Plato,  67,  75,  79,   121 
Plautus,  92 

Play  of  the  Wether,  The,  93 
Pleasant  History  of  the  Conquest  of 

West  India,  27 
Pliny,    17,  20,  41,  69,   100 
Plutarch,    17,  69,   72,   73 
Poetics  of  Aristotle,  The,   130 
puritanism,  3,  26,  57,  71,   135 
Puttenham,  87 

Quick,  73 
Quintilian,   12 

Raleigh,  Prof.  W.,  20,  55,  57,  65, 

7'.  84,   i3S 
Ralph  Roister  Doister,  93,  no,  114, 

116 
Renaissance,  the,  25,  47-52,  62,  64, 

66,  68,  95,  115,  118 
Revels'  Office,  the,  8,  9,  103,  134 
Richardson,  72,  83 
Rogers,  Thomas,  27 
romance  of  chivalry,  65-68,  75 


Ronsard,  61 
Rowland,  24 

Sacharissa,   13 

Sainte-Beuve,  53 

St  Paul's  Choir  School,   7,  8,  87, 

99,  109,  116,  119,  123,  131,  134 
Saintsbury,   Prof.,  27 

Sallust,  37 

Sapho  and  Phao,  7,  87,  98,  99,  104- 

107,  n6,  122 
Savoy  Hospital,  the,  7 
School  of  Abuse,  The,  27 
Schoolmaster,   The,  38,   50,  52,  67, 

73,  75 

Schwan,  Dr,  56 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  it 
Seneca,  129 
Shakespeare,   2,  9,  43,  47,  55,  95, 

100,  IOI,  IO2,   IO5,  109,  IIO,  III, 

ii3>  IJ5'  IJ6'  "8,  120-124,  127, 

128,  130,  138,  139 
Sheridan,  88 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  23,  27,  55,  58, 

68,  82,  84 

Sixe  Court  Comedies,   114 
Soliman  and  Perse.da,  45 
Soto,  Pedro  de,  26 
Spain  (and  Spanish),  22-28,  30,  31, 

33-36,  40,  42,  47,  48,  52,  66,  69, 

136 

Spanish  Tragedy,  The,  43,  44,  45 
Spencer,  Herbert,  61 
Spenser,   103,   120 
Stella,   109 

Stevenson,  93,  95,   114,  119 
Stratford,  109 

Suppositi  (Supposes),  94,  119,  126 
Surrey,  31 

Symonds,  J.  A.,  47,  62,  91,  93,  104, 
117 

Taine,   i 

Tamburlaine,   1 1 3 

Taming  of  the  Shrew,  The,  93 


148 


INDEX 


Tasso,  48 

Tents  and  Toils  (office  of),  8 

Terence,  50,  92,  96 

Thackeray,  77 

Titnon   of  Athens   (anticipated   by 

Lyly),  10 1 
Toxophilus,  38 
Tully  (v.  Cicero) 

Udall,  Nicholas,  87,  93,  95,  96,  97, 

114,  116,  119 
Underbill,   23,  24,  27,  28,  34,  36, 

40 

Vere,  Edward  de,  7,  28,  46,  86,  87, 

116,  119,  134 
Villa  Garcia,  26 
Virgil,  17,  50 
Vives,  25,  26 

Waller,  12,  140 
Ward,  Dr,  8,  92,  93 


Ward,  Mrs  H.,  30,  80 

Warner,  43,  57 

Watson,  Thomas,  7,  45,  46,  49,  53, 

133.  137 

Webbe,  William,   n 

Welbanke,  43 

West,  Dr,  33,  34 

Weymouth,  Dr,   14 

Wilkinson,  43 

Wine,  Women  and  Song,   \  1 7 

Woman  in  the  Moon,  The,  98,  112, 
113,  124,  130 

Woman  is  a  Weathercock,  A,  44 

women,  importance  of,  in  the  Eliza- 
bethan age,  74-76,  80-82,  97-98, 
100-101,  125-126,  128 

Wood,  Anthony  a,  4,  5,  86 

Wyatt,  31 

Wycliff,  66 

Wynkyn  de  Worde,  66 

Zola,  75 


CAMBRIDGE:    PRINTED  BY  JOHN  CLAY,  M.A.  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


A    000  675  748     8 


